


Neighbours

by meanddoves



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal (TV) RPF, Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aunt Molly Rules, Awkward Boners, Awkward End, Awkward Francis Dolarhyde, Denial of Feelings, Developing Friendships, Dry Humping, F/M, First Time, Francis Dolarhyde Being A Dork, Francis Dolarhyde To Richard Armitage, Friendship/Love, Hand Jobs, Holidays, How Do I Tag, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I don't know, Land Of Denial, Let's Say Will Graham Is Reader's Dad, Loneliness, Oral Sex, Overprotective Francis Dolarhyde, Post-Red Dragon, Red Dragon Is An Idiot, Red Dragon Spoilers, Richard Armitage In The End, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Stalking, The Author Regrets Nothing, What Was I Thinking?, new identity, new life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 15:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanddoves/pseuds/meanddoves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lazy wide grin appeared on your face when you realised you’ve just changed your mind about neighbours being pain in the ass as you watched your new neighbour through a window in your room. This holiday might not be as boring as you thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This took me longer than I thought it would and it turned out to be way longer than I expected, so I had basically no idea what was I doing. I'm sorry for what happened, but I still live in The Land Of Hannibal Denial.  
> And great thanks to mWritesReaderInserts for support and my lovely cousin for advising.  
> All mistakes are mine, I don't own any of the characters.

 “How long am I supposed to stay here?” you sighed in defeat when your dad’s car finally stopped. Through the car window you could see only the light flashing through the windows of your aunt’s house, it was already dark outside.

“Don’t know, honey. Not long,” dad gave you a comforting smile and squeezed your hand in his gently. You smiled in response, still sadly a bit when dad opened the trunk and put your not so light luggage on the sidewalk. Together you made your way up to the doorway, you pulling your case behind, dad’s arm around your shoulders.

“You’ll be a good girl, right?” he chuckled slightly to lighten the situation.

“Don’t worry,” you assured him, “you’ll come after you and mum-”

“Yes, but...” he interrupted you, his eyes avoiding yours for a while. The topic of mum’s and dad’s divorce was more or less a taboo, nor you and neither your parents spoke about it, but you felt a lot of tension between them, not mentioning arguments and shouting, which got more and more often these days. This was the reason you had to stay with Aunt Molly. The problem was that you hardly knew her and met her only a few times during dull family gatherings, but nobody except you thought it was a complication at all.

“But what?” you frowned in confusion and stopped.

“There’s this..., you know, I have a lot of work...” dad tried to explain as much as possible without giving you any details about his case, so the explanation was truly awful, but you understood.

“You have to catch the bad guy, huh?” you have seen the news and even tried to persuade dad to give you some information, however, with no success. Dad just nodded and moved up to the doorway.

For a while you forgot about the world and just tried to remember at least something about the “Red Dragon” as much as possible, even though there was hardly anything to remember, the police, just like the media knew almost nothing about him. You didn’t even notice when dad rang the doorbell a few times already, slowly growing impatient. You snapped back when the dark door in front of you swung open unexpectedly and you were dragged into a rib-crushing hug.

“Sweetheart, Y/N!  How nice to see you!” you mumbled a response with your face pushed against aunt’s shoulder, trying to sound excited as well and catch your breath at the same time. Aunt greeted dad in a less hearted way, but you still thought that the whole street knew by now that you came for a visit. She also offered him to stay overnight, or at least have a dinner, but dad refused politely, which was quite a dirty trick and you gave him a death glare for that. He grinned slyly, the playful twinkles in his eyes gleaming visibly again.

After a small polite chat dad and aunt had, it was finally time to go. You hugged dad tightly, he wrapped his arms around you too, rubbing your back carefully.

“Bye, honey. I’ll come back for you as soon as... possible, alright?” he pulled away with a warm smile.

“Yeah, bye,” for a moment you felt your eyes watering, but blinked the tears back quickly. Luckily, dad hadn’t noticed a thing and after a while you heard a low rumbling sound of his car moving out of your sight.

“Come in, you must be hungry,” aunt’s hand on your shoulder made you turn around. You took the luggage in, she showed you your room and let you unpack your things while she warmed up the food and after a quick dinner, which turned out to be not as awkward as you thought it would be, you finally changed into pyjamas and turned off the light.

Already in the bed, you realised it was not completely dark – a dim light was flashing through your window. You rolled your eyes in irritation – the neighbours would probably be quite a pain in the ass, but turned to face the wall, hoping you’d fall asleep easier. No. After a while of squirming you sighed in annoyance and stood up to draw the curtains. It was supposed to be quick – you’d darken the room and slip back under the covers, but curiosity filled your mind and you found yourself scanning the view from your window carefully and staring at the opposite house. Even in the night it looked huge, a massive black silhouette with a bright light coming from one room. You leaned against the sill to have a better look, the good manners forgotten. The room seemed to be in the attic, the wooden beams were quite visible. Your eyes stopped on a figure – a man lifting weights. You couldn’t see his face, just short black hair, but definitely noticed his rather good looking muscular body covered with a thin layer of sweat, black boxers hiding his private parts. The man seemed to be too concentrated on his actions to notice you staring. You were in the cover of dark, so he couldn’t see you, but still felt adrenaline rushing through your body. A lazy wide grin appeared on your face when you realised you’ve just changed your mind about neighbours being pain in the ass. For some time you kept leaning against the windowsill and observing the man, the tension leaving your body quickly. Out of nothing, the man stopped, put the weights down and turned your way. With a surprised squeak you backed from the window, not aware of where you were going, but trying to get out of the man’s sight and tumbled to your bed and hid under the blankets completely. Your heart was beating somewhere in your throat and you calmed only after you peeked your head out after a while and noticed that the man had turned the light off, but even despite that you felt unease. For a moment you had a feeling that his eyes met yours, but it had to be nonsense – he could not see you. You tried to fall asleep, but failed and spent quite a time fighting the obtrusive, but not really unpleasant thoughts of the unknown. Finally, you managed to drift into an uneasy slumber.

* * *

“I’ll come at 6. Dinner’s in fridge.”

This was all aunt left you with. Early in the morning you woke up to the sound of her car’s engine roaring, but it was too early for you to start your day, so you just curled deeper to the covers and fell asleep again. When you finally crawled out of the bed, you found the sticky note on the fridge. After a quick breakfast, you decided to get to know aunt’s house and the neighbourhood. Slowly, you visited each room, looked through all the family pictures on the walls and books put neatly into the bookshelves. You felt your heart sting a bit when you saw your parents’ wedding photo, but pushed the pain away quickly as you moved to another room. For a while you entertained yourself by watching telly and reading some of aunt’s magazines. It was truly odd to know that aunt has some private life, because your parents often told you that she was working a lot and you couldn’t imagine her in any other way, but with a suitcase in one hand and mobile phone in the other rushing from one meeting to another.

When the whole house started to feel too hot and stiff, you made your way upstairs to your room, put on some shorts and a tank top as you were still in your pyjamas and then headed to the hall. A quite curse echoed in the room when you realised you couldn’t go outside – aunt locked you inside and forgot to give you the spare key. You started to look all around to find some rack or bowl – some place where aunt kept the keys. Luckily, you noticed a light wooden bowl on the table nearby, a bunch of keys tangled together in it. With a sigh you untangled them and tried every single one. You couldn’t help yourself, but let out a happy squeal when you found the right key and the lock made a clicking sound.

 A wave of warm air refreshed your face and ruffled your hair as you stepped outside into the small front garden. After your eyes adjusted to the sun, you thought it would do no harm if you checked the mailbox, just to save your aunt a second or two. While browsing the newspaper and some letters, all with the same address, you found an exception. The postman made clearly a mistake and put one letter into the wrong mailbox. Quickly, you brought the rest of the mail back home, locked the house and went out to the calm, dead-like street, following the writing on the envelope. You didn’t have to go far; the address on the letter matched the address of the next house. The house. For a second you considered turning back and pretending you never held the damned letter, but you scolded yourself for being stupid and ended up standing in the middle of the street awkwardly. The _thing_ that happened in the night was not serious at all, no one saw you, _really no one_ , you hadn’t seen anything inappropriate either and it can’t be hard to pretend that this man does NOT interest you at all. So that made the night events actually _nothing._ You were acting foolish. Deep breaths encouraged you while making your way to your neighbour’s doorway. Automatically, your finger went up to the doorbell, stopped just a few inches from it, but after a last short hesitation you heard the ringing sound echoing through the huge building, the shadow of you were currently hiding in. Nothing. You tried again, listening closely to any sounds from inside. Even though you felt terrible for it, you found yourself being happy when an idea that he might not be home flashed through your mind. You turned around to leave, but a chilly breeze on your nape made you turn again.

In front of you stood _the man_ , tall, broad shoulders and chest, the strong muscles you already knew of hid behind a grey polo shirt tugged neatly into dark jeans. Your eyes stopped on his face framed by short dark brown, almost black hair, his light blue eyes piercing yours with a frown, not really unfriendly, but his look wasn’t kind at all.

“What?” you noticed a scar on his upper lip as he spoke, but quickly looked elsewhere. He hadn’t seen it and continued to gaze down at your figure, which you realised started to tremble with unease a bit, despite the hot weather.

“How can I help you?” with a sigh the man started again in a not so intimidating way as he realised that you were not really paying attention to him the way you should be, his smooth baritone rubbing against your ears, which didn’t help your concentration either.

“The - the postman made a mis - mistake, I guess,” you stuttered, burning red in face as you showed him the letter in your hand, “I found it in my mailbox... I mean my aunt’s mailbox - it’s not mine, I’m here just for the holiday, but my aunt’s not home – anyway... Oh, I’m sorry-”

“Okay,” the man stopped your babbling, you didn’t even dare to look up at him, but the thought that you might somehow befriend him, or at least have a small chat vanished immediately.

“May I have the letter?” he stretched his hand towards you, awaiting the envelope.

“Of course,” you calmed and gave him his letter, feeling coldness and distance radiating from his whole being as you did so.

“You – you are new here then?” the man started a small chat as you were still not feeling brave enough to talk some more. It, however, made you just more bewildered and shocked than you already were, but it looked like it was a bit challenging for him to talk to you as well, you noticed his strong grip while opening the envelope as carefully as possible.

“Yes, I’m visiting my aunt,” you responded slowly, trying not to talk incoherently this time and starting to relax a bit. You realised that the man was not as intimidating as he seem to look on the first sight, now he seemed even shy, even though you might just made it up but it made you, on the other hand a bit braver, “so, you have a new neighbour for now.”

“Uhm,” the man cleared his throat and stretched his hand towards you again, this time for a handshake, “Francis Dolarhyde.”

“Y/N. It is pleasure to meet you Mr. Dolarhyde,” you accepted his hand, trying not to focus on his tensed grip and forcing yourself not to hold him too long. You shared a polite smile, Mr. Dolarhyde tensed, you nervous as well, both of you definitely speechless.

“I’m surely keeping you from work, I’ll go now,” you managed to break the awkward silence and stepped a few steps backwards, “goodbye Mr. Dolarhyde.”

“Bye,” Mr. Dolarhyde gave you last small emotionless glance, closed the door and left you alone in the stifling summer hotness.

* * *

The rest of your day continued pretty much normal, you even forgot about the awkwardness and tension shortly after your meeting with Mr. Dolarhyde. A big swimming pool in the backyard turned out to be the best place to spend the afternoon in, the cool water making a nice contrast with the warm surroundings. In the late afternoon, when the weather got a bit colder, you even made a small walk around the neighbourhood, admiring others’ gardens and petting the dogs that were willing to be petted, but avoiding Mr. Dolarhyde’s house with all your might. This man was too interesting and you were afraid that your curiosity might grow too much. You didn’t want to think about him anymore and avoiding everything that might be somehow connected with Mr. Dolarhyde seemed like a plan, even though you were living right next to him.

Late in the evening, after the dinner and after your aunt came back from work, you found yourself staring out of the window at Mr. Dolarhyde again. You knew it should bother you – your curiosity and shamefulness, and you knew you promised yourself you wouldn’t seek his presence but there was just something about this man... you just couldn’t drag your eyes of him. With an absent minded smile you watched his muscles tensing under the weights, remembering his voice and look, you didn’t mind the scar on his upper lip at all. After his exercise routine, Mr. Dolarhyde threw a towel around his shoulders, probably heading to the shower. You tried to focus on his back as you had noticed something colourful on it, probably a tattoo, but Mr. Dolarhyde was quicker and made you focus on something else when he took off his underwear. You gasped in shock, your eyes wide opened and observing his fine, very fine bottom for a few precious seconds until Mr. Dolarhyde turned the lights off and disappeared in his house. For a while you were leaning against the windowsill, still trying to recover from the shock. You didn’t even bother yourself with trying to fall asleep – it was impossible. All the thoughts about Mr. Dolarhyde that were pushed back during the day filled your brain, his breathtaking figure, the sheepishness and awkwardness he spoke to you with making him even more interesting and you had to admit he was some sort of Greek god. Greek god of shyness and social anxiety.

* * *

You woke up soon after your aunt left again. This time, you forced yourself not to spend the whole forenoon curled in bed and after a small walk, which awoke you completely as it was rather chilly you decided to spend your day in the garden. Already in swimsuit and shorts, you found a blanket, made a fresh jug of lemonade, took your notebook and pencils and headed outside. Choosing the right spot to settle proved to be quite a challenge. For a while you were standing awkwardly in the middle of the garden, trying to decide whether to settle next to the pool, lay down by a small flowerbed, or near the fence. The last option won as there were trees that provided a cooling shadow and you had a good view of the whole garden as well. While drawing, you noticed that Mr. Dolarhyde got active too – you heard a rumbling sound of a lawn-mower in the background, probably on the other side of his house. As time went by, the sun shone brighter and brighter and the rumble of the lawn-mower got slowly nearer. You were too engrossed in what you were sketching to notice it, the rumbling made you even more concentrated. You snapped back to reality only when the lawn-mower was right next to the fence. And so was Mr. Dolarhyde. You turned around and while lying on your back you waited for him to notice you, your lips curled in an amused smile. Clearly, he didn’t so you sat up and waved at him.

“Oh,” Mr. Dolarhyde turned the lawn-mower off, a bit aback by your presence, “didn’t see you there.”

“Hello,” you responded with a wide grin caused by his surprise, “isn’t it too hot for cutting the grass?”

“I’d had to do it sooner or later. But I’m done for today, I’ll do the rest tomorrow,” Mr. Dolarhyde shrugged his shoulders and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. For the very first time you were thankful for the hot weather as it had to soften his hard manners at last and make him form longer sentences.

“May I offer you a glass of lemonade then?” you stood up swiftly; ready to bring a glass for him.

“You don’t need to bother, thank you,” he tried to protest, but it was useless – you have already decided.

“Oh come on, it has to be boiling hot in those clothes,” you glanced at Mr. Dolarhyde’s jeans and shirt, the only signs of him being too hot were rolled up sleeves and droplets of sweat on his forehead and neck. You capered into the house sooner than he could protest some more. After a minute you were back again, filled his glass with the cool drink and passed it over the fence. He mumbled quiet thanks and emptied the glass in a few thirsty gulps. He gave it back, his fingers clearly brushing against yours, not caring about it at all, and you had to fight a bright blush.

“You like drawing?” Mr. Dolarhyde stopped your blush by changing the topic and motioning towards your notebook.

“Yeah, well...” you found yourself gripping the glass strongly, your knuckles going white. It always made you irritated when people asked you about it. You didn’t mind them looking at your pictures, but they always wanted you to draw something for them and you had no interest in doing that at all. Drawing was your way of relaxation, your private thing.

“Can I see?” he gave you a questioning look, eyebrows raised slightly, but you were almost sure he was trying puppy eyes. With a defeated sigh you bent down to grab the notebook and let him browse it. From time to time he stopped and gave some drawings a closer look, his eyes focused on the lines of the pencils. While holding your breath you watched Mr. Dolarhyde turn the pages carefully, so he wouldn’t smudge the drawings. It was unusual, none of the people you showed your drawings to did that, no one of them seemed to care this much about it.

“It’s good,” Mr. Dolarhyde noted and let you take the notebook. You tried to hide a flattered smile. He noticed it, but didn’t say anything, just smiled slightly back. That made you somehow relieved and relaxed and you were sure it was Mr. Dolarhyde’s intention.

“You should probably go inside, you don’t want to get sunburn,” Mr. Dolarhyde suggested and you had to agree – it was surely about noon and the weather got really hot.

“And what about you?” you found yourself asking without thinking it through, so it had to sound quite weird and mentally kicked yourself for saying it.

“I’m going inside too,” Mr. Dolarhyde responded, corners of his lips curling upwards in a hidden laugh.

“Oh... yes, yes, of course,” you mumbled for yourself, feeling ashamed a bit, “goodbye, then.”

“Bye, Y/N,” Mr. Dolarhyde said in low voice while you were slowly heading inside with handful of blanket you took earlier, but heard him clearly.

* * *

You realised that Mr. Dolarhyde’s night exercise routine became yours as well. Well, it wasn’t an exercise routine, but a staring routine. The feeling that you were being nosy and basically stalked him was slowly lapsing and you accepted it the way it was. You were watching him lifting the weights, just like the two nights before, thoughts of him running through your head. You were expecting him to pull the underwear down this time, so when he did so you didn’t flinch. However, you did flinch when Mr. Dolarhyde turned around and you saw him from front. You tried to look at his chest or face, or anywhere else but down _there_ , but when his hand moved downwards and his head fell back with mouth formed in O-shape, you let out a soundless yelp of shock and made your way to the bed _really_ quickly. Already in bed, and after you recovered from what you had just witnessed  you realised that with each day and night is Mr. Dolarhyde revealing more of himself to you. Well, he was aware only of what he revealed to you during the day, or at least you thought and believed so, but the more you found yourself drawn to him. He was interesting, almost always nervous, those moments when he wasn’t were precious to you and you’d really like to get to know him better, to make him feel not tensed in your presence.

* * *

“Good morning, Y/N,” you were greeted by Mr. Dolarhyde as soon as you appeared in the garden. He was on the exact spot he stopped cutting his lawn yesterday, a light smile and a black oily smear on his face.

“Good morning,” you responded, put a towel and a book you brought with you near the pool, took your sunscreen and leaned against the fence, next to Mr. Dolarhyde, but from the opposite side.

“Is everything alright?” you frowned when he sighed, somehow in desperation or defeat, you didn’t know, and wiped his hands into the jeans.

“Yeah, umm... looks like I won’t disturb you today... with the noise, I mean,” Mr. Dolarhyde gave his lawn-mower a glance that would surely burn a hole in it, if it lasted longer.

“You weren’t disturbing me yesterday either,” you laughed gently while covering your arms with the sunscreen as you didn’t want to spoil your day with nasty sunburn. Then you smeared it over your chest and belly, keeping a light chat flowing. You were glad that Mr. Dolarhyde was not so tensed; by the way he greeted you you even dared to think he started to like you a bit.

“Mr. Dolarhyde could you – could you help me a bit, please?” you were covered with the sunscreen completely already; the only thing you couldn’t quite reach was your back. You didn’t even know where such courage came from but suddenly you found yourself motioning to your back with one hand and giving him the bottle of sunscreen with the other.

“Uhm,” Mr. Dolarhyde had nowhere to back out, so he took the bottle with a short hesitation and smeared the cream over his palms. Instinctively, you wiped your hair from your back when you felt his fingers on your skin. Slowly, he covered your shoulders and nape first, spreading the cream evenly over your shoulder blades. His touches, shy and timid at first, became soon gentle and relaxing, his palms pressing with the right pressure over your tensed muscles which made you suppress moans of pleasure that were trying to escape your throat. Your face flushed when Mr. Dolarhyde lifted the laces of the upper part of your bikini with two fingers and then moved to cover your lower back as well. Mentally, you scolded yourself for not thinking this through when you realised you’d eventually have to face him with such violent blush covering your cheeks.

“There,” the huskiness in Mr. Dolarhyde’s voice was clearly audible, even though he cleared his throat to hide it somehow.

“Thank you,” you chirped as you turned around to face him, your eyes meeting for a second, but you both looked elsewhere quickly.

“Can I borrow the – the sunscreen?” Mr. Dolarhyde broke the uncomfortable silence between the two of you and you nodded in response fervently.

“Yes, yes of course, but you have a black smudge over here,” you added quickly, motioning to your own cheek. Mr. Dolarhyde wiped his face with his hand, but that didn’t help, so he pulled a tip of his tee shirt up and rubbed the smear with the fabric. For a second you saw his abdomen, sleek, muscles tensing and relaxing under the almost white, not sun-tanned skin.

“Is it still there?” Mr. Dolarhyde asked after he let the tee shirt fall back freely, not tugging it into his jeans as usual. You shook your head and waited for him to smear the sunscreen over his face and neck.

“Are you sure it’s dead?” you gave the lawn-mower a questioning look after he gave you the sunscreen back and squatted down in the high grass to have a better look at it.

“Don’t know,” Mr. Dolarhyde shrugged his shoulders, stood up and pulled the starter cord. The lawn-mower made a sputtering sound, but when he tried again, the sputters changed to the well known rumble.

“Not quite dead yet,” he chuckled a little. The lightening of Mr. Dolarhyde’s mood made you chuckle as well, somehow in response. With a bright smile you went to the pool and let him do his work.

While laying on an inflatable mattress, reading and being moved all over the pool by a light breeze you noticed Mr. Dolarhyde’s gaze on your skin. You didn’t really mind it, quite the opposite – it made you happy to know he wasn’t feeling so nervous around you; you even joked a few times when you caught him looking by asking him whether he’d like to join you. He gave you a small chuckle or a wink, once he even responded something that made you blush even more than him and went back to work. It was nice to know he didn’t treat you like a child and could share even some dirty jokes with you without it being awkward. Sometimes, however, his look was different. Hungry. Predatory.

* * *

You had no idea what came to your head when you decided to bake cookies. You were cleaning the mess you had made while doing the dough, the cookies already baking, the oven making the kitchen even hotter than it already was before. Curses flowed from your mouth fluently without even bothering to stop them as you tried to scrub the dried pieces of dough off the bowl it was in. You jerked in surprise when you heard the alarm clock ring, ran quickly to the oven and opened it. A nasty heat wave hit your face when you opened the door and peeked in to see the result. This time, you bit your tongue and said nothing, just concentrated on taking the hot baking pan out of the oven without burning yourself. After cleaning the whole kitchen and letting the cookies cool a bit you realised that they weren’t such failure you thought they would be. Carefully inspecting each one of them and then tasting one you even had to congratulate yourself as they were probably the best cookies you had ever made. They were actually the first you had ever made, so there wasn’t much to compare them with, but you were still satisfied with how they turned out. A bit darker on the bottom, but sweet and soft enough, chocolate chips and dried cranberries making them even tastier.

* * *

It was late afternoon already when you went outside. The fresh and not so hot air blew through your hair and caused a small smile on your face still a bit red from the stress and hotness in the kitchen. With a plate of cookies covered with a colourful napkin you had found after a long search in aunt’s cabinet you were heading to see Mr. Dolarhyde again today. At first you thought that he’d be in his garden and went to see if he was there, but he was nowhere to be found, so you realised he was probably inside. Making your way up to his doorway was so much easier this time. As you rang the doorbell, you hoped that he maybe let you in and show you his house – you found it really interesting and mysterious, just like its owner. You didn’t have to wait too long, after a short while Mr. Dolarhyde opened the door, looking surprised again. Not just surprised. He was red all over his face and neck, panting slightly, droplets of sweat on his forehead and a towel thrown over his shoulder.

“How – how can I help you?” he exhaled and waited impatiently for your reply.

“I brought you some cookies I – I made today,” you responded, not expecting his unusual attitude. Inconspicuously, you tried to look over his shoulder and into the room, but saw nothing but darkness and Mr. Dolarhyde had to notice it as he squirmed a bit to fill the narrow gap, so you gave up and didn’t try to peek in anymore.

“Thank you, that’s lovely,” Mr. Dolarhyde took the covered plate you gave him and smiled politely, but you saw it was a bit forced.

“Well, I hope you’ll like them,” you started to back away slowly, the feeling that you interrupted something private growing strong, “have a nice day, Mr. Dolarhyde.”

“You too, Y/N,” Mr. Dolarhyde said quickly, his voice raspy, and closed the door in front of you.

* * *

When you were watching Mr. Dolarhyde working out that evening, his odd behaviour occurred to your mind again. While lifting the weights, he looked so peaceful and calm, unlike earlier that day. You thought that he’d probably want to give you the plate back right away and let you in, so you’d have some time to look around the house while Mr. Dolarhyde would replace your plate with his own. Maybe he’d even invite you for a tea or a lemonade, but that would be truly a miracle. You assured yourself that you went there just in the wrong time and Mr. Dolarhyde wouldn’t want you to witness things you weren’t supposed to witness. For a second a frown appeared on your face, but you calmed yourself quickly – you could ask for the plate you gave him earlier anytime and Mr. Dolarhyde would surely give it back.

* * *

The next morning you woke up to a sound of angry bumping onto one of the walls and the window. Still sleepy, you managed to crawl out of the bed and make your way to the window, just to see that the weather had changed rapidly during the night. Enormous gray clouds covered whole sky; it was raining hard, you could hear the wind howling angrily and see flashes of light in the background. While heading back under the blankets you mumbled a few curses, but the heavy raindrops hitting the window drowned them out. It looks like you won’t see Mr. Dolarhyde today.

You congratulated yourself for sleeping through almost the whole day. When you woke up the second time, it was already late afternoon. You realised that without Mr. Dolarhyde’s presence everything seemed boring and there was truly little you could do in the house, so you tried to keep yourself occupied by taking a really long shower and washing your hair, spent quite a time just wandering from one room to another absentmindedly, then you decided to make dinner and waited for aunt to come. When she finally arrived, the food was almost cold. Quickly, you reheated it and set the table. The irritation from her late arrival lapsed as you saw her relieved and tired smile when she sat by the table and didn’t have to make the food.

“I hope it doesn’t bother you too much that you’re alone most of the day, Y/N,” aunt said while finishing her meal. With your mouth full, you shook you head quickly, maybe a bit too eagerly as you pretty much _enjoyed_ being alone.

“Well, then I think you will manage being alone during the weekend then. I have an important business trip,” she added, looking really guilty and sorry.

“No problem, I’ll manage,” you responded and did your best not to sound too thrilled.

“Really?” aunt’s look lightened a little, she was a bit aback by your excitement, “it won’t take long, I’ll be back on Monday.”

“Cool,” you assured her one more time and took the dishes to the kitchen when suddenly you heard the doorbell ring. You heard your aunt murmuring a confused “what the hell?” while hurrying to open the door. She looked even more surprised when she came back to you.

“Who was it?” you couldn’t hold your curiosity.

“The neighbour – Mr. Dolarhyde. He wants to talk to you,” she answered with a bewildered look.

“Me?” you couldn’t believe it either. What could he want from you?

“Yeah, he’s waiting outside,” aunt pushed you gently out of the kitchen with a smirk as you were a bit too numb to move, “go on, I’ll do the dishes.”

A chilly breeze made you shiver as you stepped outside into the street lit only by the streetlamps. It was not raining as heavily as it did during the day, so you thought you could manage it without an umbrella or a jacket. In the dim light you saw Mr. Dolarhyde’s figure shuffling nervously near the doorway, the rain making his clothes wet, the plate you gave him earlier with the cookies in hand.

“Good evening,” you greeted him and he jerked at the sound of your voice.

“Good evening, Y/N,” he coughed gently and gave you the plate, “thank – thank you for the cookies, they were really good.”

“You’re welcome,” you frowned at his, well, not unusual behaviour, but you already got used to him being relaxed in your presence.

“I’d like to – like to ask you...” Mr. Dolarhyde stopped for a moment to think it through “I’ve noticed you like drawing and tomorrow I’m going to an art museum. If you want to, I can take you with me.”

The offer caught you completely off guard; you were just standing there on the pavement staring at Mr. Dolarhyde, who with each second felt worse and worse, holding onto the sleeves of his jacket strongly.

“I apologize. It wasn’t a good idea, you hardly know me and it would be reckless and-” he started to mumble after a while of silence and back away quickly, “good – good night.”

“No, no! I – I’d like you to take me there, Mr. Dolarhyde,” you responded swifty when you finally realised what was truly going on and took a few steps towards him, hoping you didn’t scare him away and he didn’t change his mind already.

“Really?” Mr. Dolarhyde’s voice was still raspy, but you could hear a hint of hope in it.

“Of course!” you smiled widely at him and he gave you a stiff, but true smile.

“I’m leaving at half past eight,” Mr. Dolarhyde added in a calmer tone and you nodded in understand, “good night then.”

“Good night,” you waved in the doorway and while closing the door you saw Mr. Dolarhyde waving back a little.

* * *

Aunt Molly woke you up when she was about to go, she gave you last instructions about the food or when to water the plants and you watched her start up her car and leave. After a quick shower, which made the slight tiredness go away you made breakfast and while eating you tried to decide on what to wear. With no success. You found yourself staring into your wardrobe absentmindedly, not knowing what to do at all. With a sigh you finally chose a simple white shirt, dark jeans and a colourful flowery necklace. You weren’t completely satisfied with your choice, but when you looked in the mirror you thought it was the best you could do and secretly hoped Mr. Dolarhyde would like it, even though you tried to dismiss it. You still had a bit of time and had nothing to do, so you just kept wandering through he whole house, from one room to another, like you did so many times before, occupying yourself by imagining all the various combinations of what could Mr. Dolarhyde wear. When you heard a car stopping in front of the house, you took your jacket as it was still cloudy and very likely to rain sooner or later, locked the door and hurried down the front garden to Mr. Dolarhyde, who got out of his van to greet you. He seemed even taller in well fitting trousers and a long coat, probably too warm for the season, grey shirt buttoned up to the neck.

“I have a question,” Mr. Dolarhyde cleared his throat when you came down to him and showed you a long black tie, “tie or no tie?”

“No tie,” you giggled, Mr. Dolarhyde smiled back, tangled the tie into a small ball, stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, took it off and threw onto the back seat. You felt relieved when he took off the coat because you knew you’d have the need to persuade him to take it off during the whole drive. Then Mr. Dolarhyde opened the passenger door for you and you slipped in with a flattered blush. It had never happened to you before and even though you knew Mr. Dolarhyde was a good man, the inner gentleman in him surprised you. So did the inside of his van. All was neat and clean, with no stale smell. It was more than unusual for a single man living on his own. After Mr. Dolarhyde got into the van and unbuttoned the first button to be more comfortable, the air was suddenly filled with his cologne. You forced yourself not to take really deep breaths, so he wouldn’t think you’re some kind of creep, but you were truly impressed and the trip hadn’t even started yet.

Mr. Dolarhyde was driving without a word, eyes on the road, but giving you a quick glance from time to time. Each time you met his eyes, you smiled gently and your smile widened a bit when Mr. Dolarhyde looked back on the road with a blush spreading on his face. When the silence started to make you bored and you feared you might drift off and that you didn’t want in Mr. Dolarhyde’s presence, you started a small chat, asking him about his work and free time. He was really brief and his answers consisted only of one or two words at first, but the more you were asking the more he started to speak, he even told you about his evening exercise routine which you pretended to be surprised about.

When you arrived, there weren’t many people yet. Mr. Dolarhyde bought the tickets and gestured you to follow him. The museum was enormous. The building itself had to be really old, surrounded by big park and bushy trees. But it was nothing compared to the amount of pictures, drawings, sketches and statues, probably hundreds of them, hanging on the walls or standing on stands. For a short while you were just admiring the interior, speechless, trying your best not to walk around with your mouth ajar.

“Do you – do you like it?” Mr. Dolarhyde asked with insecurity in his voice. You just nodded your head, unable to express your amazement and gratitude. You noticed his smile growing wider when he saw that you were so thrilled and felt his hand on your lower back as he was guiding you through the museum, explaining meanings of various pictures, the techniques that were used or lives of the authors, his shyness and stiffness suddenly forgotten. It did, however, came back when he saw William Blake’s The Great Red Dragon painting. A small crowd surrounded the watercolour picture, you and Mr. Dolarhyde amongst them. You stayed there after the crowd of tourists left, Mr. Dolarhyde getting as close to it as possible, not looking anywhere else, but on the heavy muscled dragon standing above a woman clothed in sun. He didn’t even blink and when you tried to ask him something, he didn’t seem to hear you. You decided to proceed on your own, wandering in the next hall, so you could keep an eye on Mr. Dolarhyde, who was clearly astonished by the painting. You liked it too, it was nice, but there were definitely nicer pictures worthier your attention than this one. After about half an hour you decided it’s truly time to move on. At first you asked Mr. Dolarhyde to proceed, but he just mumbled something incoherent, so you took his arm and tried to pull him gently. He startled when he felt your fingers touching him, his sudden movement made you jolt too, but to your luck he let you wrap your hand around his arm and moved with you. Soon his talkativeness came back and everything was like before, except this time you were holding Mr. Dolarhyde as you were afraid he might find his way back to that painting or get stuck in front some other drawing, but he didn’t seem to mind your touch.

Despite your early arrival it was afternoon already when you went out of the museum. Mr. Dolarhyde took you for a lunch at a nearby restaurant, a pleasant place with nice service and good food. You had a suspicion he made a little research before this trip because earlier he told you he didn’t know the surroundings very well, but it didn’t bother you at all. Then you made a little walk in the great park around the museum, asked him about the picture he had admired so much in the museum and listened to Mr. Dolarhyde’s detailed interpretation of Blake’s painting you saw earlier. You had no idea where such interest came from; Mr. Dolarhyde seemed to you like a person who wouldn’t care about art at all.

The drive back home was quicker than you thought. You were watching the sunset from the passenger window, listening to classical music Mr. Dolarhyde used to listen while driving. At first, he didn’t want you to listen to it, you thought that he felt ashamed for his music taste in front of someone younger, but you assured him that it wasn’t weird and that you liked it. And you truly did. The slow melody of piano and cello made you really relaxed and soon you found yourself fighting an intrusive slumber, after a short while you couldn’t bear it anymore and closed your eyes.

“Y/N, wake up,” you felt something snug and big on your shoulder and warm breath on your neck. You opened your eyes slowly, it took you a while to realise where you were, but when you finally did so, redness of embarrassment crept up your whole body. You straightened on your seat quickly, too quickly because your head made several angry spins, which made the blush just brighter.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to drop off, I’m really sorry-” your mumbled apology was interrupted by a raspy chuckle.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Dolarhyde cut you off, the tone of his voice letting you know it was truly alright.

“We are home,” he stated shortly and you looked out just to see nothing but raindrops on the window you were looking through. Again, Mr. Dolarhyde opened the door for you, the cool air smelling of rain chasing your sleepiness away.

“I had a great time, the museum and everything... it was really pleasant to be in your company, Mr. Dolarhyde, thank you,” you turned to him with a bright smile.

“You’re welcome,” his eyes twinkling in the dark showed that he enjoyed your company as well, even though his face was almost emotionless, if not a bit tired.

You didn’t know what came to your mind, but suddenly you found yourself standing on your tiptoes, leaning forward and about to place a kiss on Mr. Dolarhyde’s cheek.

“Good night-” he shifted a bit to wish you good night, but his words were silenced by your lips. You didn’t know what happened, for a second you both kept still, your partly opened mouth pressing against his, you could feel his whole body trembling with fear. The kiss lasted merely a second, you pulled away quickly when you noticed Mr. Dolarhyde’s panic.

“We can’t-” he rasped, looking everywhere else but on you, your apologies drowned out by a smash of the van’s door. Startled, you watched him driving to his house and stumbling while walking to the doorway.

When you knew he was inside, you unlocked your door and slipped in as well. You leaned against the front door, breathing heavily, thoughts flashing through your mind, making a big whirlpool in your brain. Quickly, you kicked your shoes off and while unbuttoning your shirt you made your way upstairs. In the darkness of your room you put on an old tee shirt you used as pyjama top and fell onto the bed wearily, not daring to look up to the window to see if Mr. Dolarhyde was there or not. Only then you realised tears were scooping up in your eyes and you didn’t understand why, but didn’t want to let them go. It had been such a nice day, the nicest you had had since your parents started talking about their divorce. Mr. Dolarhyde was so sweet, gentle and caring, he was trying really hard to keep you entertained and you had spoiled it all. You should have known what the kiss may cause, even if it was on the cheek, but you just couldn’t help yourself. The rational part of your mind kept telling you it was only an accident, you, however, knew it wasn’t entirely true. For several days already you found yourself thinking about his lips, always scolding yourself for doing so, it was hard enough to befriend Mr. Dolarhyde and made him trust you at least a bit.

Slowly, you drifted to an uneasy sleep again, your dreams filled with softness of Mr. Dolarhyde’s lips on yours and the pure beauty of it, but the scene changed way too quickly, too quickly for you to even realise his touch, into Mr. Dolarhyde’s wide-eyed, startled and betrayed look piercing your whole body with regret and sorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, some mild smut and a domestic Francis Dolarhyde may occur, so stay tuned :D

It was late afternoon already and you were still restless. You couldn’t occupy yourself with anything for longer than a few minutes, feeling uneasy and tensed, the thoughts of yesterday events still fresh and too raw in your mind. You hoped that they wouldn’t seem so bad to you now, but they were just the same. While tying your sneakers, you thought that you won’t be able to stay outside for too long and be there just for five minutes or so. With slow Pace you started wandering through the neighbourhood, walking along streets you didn’t recognise and soon found yourself lost in the labyrinth of roads and houses looking all the same to you. A quick glance up to the sky made you frown as you saw heavy gray clouds covering the whole sky, no chance of nice weather to be seen. You shivered, put your arms across your chest to warm up a bit and started to make your way back home, or at least you tried to as you had no idea where you were and there seemed to be nobody outside to ask for directions.

The rain was pouring heavily when you finally arrived home. You rooted into your pocket to grab the keys and unlock, but they were nowhere to be found. In panic, you started to look all around you; maybe you had lost them somewhere near, then grabbed the door knob and gave it a panicked jolt, but when you did so, you heard clinking on the other side. You had locked yourself out. A desperate whimper escaped your throat when you realised you couldn’t get inside, were soaking wet and had nowhere to go. Helplessly, you slipped down onto the mat, hugged your knees tightly and listened to the raindrops hitting your whole body persistently. When a lightning flashed through the sky, soon followed by a roaring sound of thunder, you jerked in fear. You couldn’t stay there.

You were listening to your own wet patting on the street, trying to focus on that instead of a storm raging all around you, while making your way to Mr. Dolarhyde’s house. Weakly, you knocked onto the door, not awaiting any response; you knew he couldn’t hear your lame attempts to get inside. You leaned your head against the door in defeat and rang the doorbell. You heard the well known sound echoing through the halls you had never seen before and soon heard steps rushing to open the door as well. You inhaled deeply to encourage yourself, tried not to look too miserable even though it was almost impossible as your clothes were soaking wet and water was dripping from your hair, and waited for the clicking sound of door unlocking. Mr. Dolarhyde opened the door, for a second stood still; just looking at you, his face blank, but then closed the door again. You felt your eyes watering as you knocked quietly again and Mr. Dolarhyde had to be right on the opposite side because you heard his heavy sigh while opening the door again.

“What?” he said simply, with no interest at all, which made you feel even worse.

“I locked myself out,” you squeaked, not daring to talk aloud, “and aunt’s on a business trip.”

Mr. Dolarhyde tensed for a moment, probably considering whether he should let you in or not, but then exhaled in surrender, moved aside to let you in and locked the door behind you. Quietly, you followed him to a spacious living room with heavy curtains darkening it. Dim wallpapers covered the walls, the wooden furniture looked rather old-fashioned, but numbers of books about photography or art and cameras as well as old film projectors made the room look strangely comfortable. You obeyed when Mr. Dolarhyde gestured you to sit down to a big ivory couch. Again, you pressed your legs together and rubbed your arms in attempt to warm yourself, the wet clothes making your teeth clatter. Mr. Dolarhyde looked at you; you met his gaze but couldn’t identify how he felt. Suddenly, he went out of the room and you were left alone. Confused, you just kept sitting there as there wasn’t much else to do. Just as suddenly as Mr. Dolarhyde left, he came back, bringing a towel and one of his shirts. Still without a word, he put them by your side.

“Thank you,” you said in low voice, still afraid to raise it into normal. He nodded in understand, walked to the other side of the room and leaned against the wall. Slowly, you stood up to strip from the wet clothes, hoping that Mr. Dolarhyde would leave or at least turn around when he realises what were you up to. He didn’t, he kept his eyes on you so you had to turn to have at least some privacy. You felt his stern gaze when you pulled your wet tee shirt off, his look tracing from your shoulders down your spine while you tried to dry your hair with the towel. You felt a bit relieved when you realised your underwear was miraculously rather dry. Putting on Mr. Dolarhyde’s shirt felt way too good. It was clean and warm, the musky cologne scenting your damp skin. The shirt was long enough for you to be a short dress, so you’d take off your trousers without worries. Or you thought so. Your face reddened when you heard Mr. Dolarhyde clear his throat while you were trying to get out of the wet jeans and bent down to step out of them, the shirt obviously pulling up a little, revealing your light blue panties.

“Give me the clothes,” Mr. Dolarhyde came to you and stretched his hand out. Without a word, you did as he said and waited again for his return, feeling a little more comfortable. He came back with a glass of water and placed it onto the table in front of you. You saw his hand shaking while doing so.

“Are you hungry?” he asked shortly, you shook your head, how could you possibly be hungry in this kind of situation was a mystery to you. When Mr. Dolarhyde turned to walk away and leave you alone, a rush of desperation made your body shiver.

“Wait! Please...” you said quietly, but all your nervousness audible in the words. Mr. Dolarhyde turned to you, expecting you to say more, but not looking like anything could persuade him to stay with you in one room.

“...Please, sit – sit down,” you continued and watched him slowly head towards you, but settling on a couch opposite yours.

“I’m sorry,” you stuttered at first, but then the words just somehow kept flowing fluently, “I’m sorry for what happened yesterday. It was an accident, I didn’t mean to offend you or scare you in any way, it was supposed to be a thank you, but – but you moved, and-”

“Was it?” Mr. Dolarhyde cut you off and for a moment you didn’t understand what he meant by that question, “Was it an accident?”

You nodded in response, but slowly started to realise what was his point.

“Was it an accident too when you watched me each evening? Was it an accident when you spent all of your time with me? When you were holding me in the museum? When you walked in front of me in that goddamned swimsuit and asked me to help you with the fucking sunscreen? When I found you at my doorway all trembling and dripping wet today? Was than an accident too?” Mr. Dolarhyde was shaking with anger and nervousness, the long speech left him breathing heavily, his hands in fists, knuckles going white and even though you weren’t looking at him, you knew his icy blue eyes were piercing your whole body now.

“Was it an accident?” he asked you once again, in a calmer tone, this time demanding an answer.

“No,” you responded and let the pent up tears roll down your face. You tried to curl into as small ball as possible, you didn’t want him to see you like that, Mr. Dolarhyde’s shirt suddenly feeling burning on your skin.

“Do you have any idea how hard you are making this?” he sighed, face in his hands, it looked like he was fighting with himself.

“I’m sorry,” you were suppressing quiet sobs escaping your throat, feeling too weak and tired to form longer sentences.

“I should keep myself from you, but – but it’s impossible,” Mr. Dolarhyde stood up slowly, still considering whether he should approach you or not, but then gave up and sat by your side. You flinched as you didn’t expect him to get this close to you and gave him a startled teary look, having no idea what he was about to do, “I’m sorry.”

Mr. Dolarhyde laid his hand on the back of your neck, pulled you closer and pressed his lips against yours. Nothing more. He didn’t know what more to do, you felt his insecurity and after your shock faded, you started to rub your lips against his, your hands moving up to his shoulders and then buried in his hair. You bit gently onto his lower lip, he groaned softly and you deepened the kiss, interlocking your mouth with his fully, your tongues moving violently against each other, trying to find the right rhythm. You felt Mr. Dolarhyde’s hands on your hips, swiftly moving you to sit on his lap. You shuffled a bit to get comfortable, which made Mr. Dolarhyde let out a series of raspy whimpers, almost desperate with need and he started to lead the kisses. His mouth moved down to your neck, nibbling at your pulse gently at first, but the nibbles soon turned into soft bites quickly changing into stronger ones. You threw your head back for him to have better access to you and rolled up his shirt, feeling the tensed muscles under the soft almost white skin.

Suddenly, Mr. Dolarhyde lifted you up and while kissing and biting passionately, headed with you somewhere you didn’t know. A small part of you wanted to look all around you while he went through the corridors and see everything that you could, but the need to be close to Mr. Dolarhyde, as close as possible, was way too strong.

 Finally, he placed you down onto a big soft bed and crawled over you. His hot breath on your skin when he started to unbutton the shirt you wore made you shiver. Mr. Dolarhyde’s attempts to slowly unbutton the piece of clothing were gone too soon, his shaking hands struggling with the buttons, too clumsy to do it properly. You suppressed a giggle when he growled in frustration, tore the shirt open, buttons flying all around you and then pulled his shirt off quickly. Your hands were immediately on his body, touching every inch of him, nails digging softly into his back when he sealed your mouth into a heated kiss again. Absently, not knowing what you were doing, your hand shifted lower and lower, down to his bottom still covered with jeans. Oafishly you managed to find his zipper and tried to pull down his jeans, Mr. Dolarhyde busy kissing and sucking onto your collar bones.

“Mr. Dolarhyde-” you were about to urge him to take off his jeans when you heard and irritated sigh.

“Francis,” the man above you whispered, giving you a look hazed by need, the blue eyes looking at you through the lashes and you nodded in understand.

“-Francis, take it off please,” you tugged onto his jeans; he chuckled wolfishly and stood up to strip from his clothes. With his jeans he also pulled down his underwear and you had to swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Soon he came back to you, his body covering yours and his hands groping behind your back to take off your bra. You let out a sigh of relief when Francis finally undid your bra and threw it somewhere behind his back, currently you didn’t care where, the only worry that he might tear it off you like that shirt was gone. For a moment Francis froze, sat back and looked at you. Just looked. The hungry expression on his face made you a bit scared; it was so different from his usual look, although it was quite a challenge to look at his face as he was fully stripped in front of you, not a single bit of shame or shyness in his eyes now. You, on the other hand, felt with each second weirder and weirder.

“Is everything alright?” a deep blush started to spread on your cheeks, the thought that he might not like something about you growing stronger.

“Uhm,” Francis moved his gaze from your chest, a small smile on his lips, his look not so predatory, somehow softened, “you are perfect.”

This time you didn’t suppress the giggles and threw your arms around his neck, pulling him down onto you again, quietly chuckling into his ear. The chuckles soon changes, you started to nibble softly onto his ear, a hum of delight coming as a response. Francis squirmed out of your hold gently, moved south, peppering kisses on your breasts and belly while doing so. He stopped between your legs, laid his head onto your abdomen and slowly pulled your underwear down, it made its way down from the bed, just like your bra before.

“Have you ever been with... someone before?” Francis raised his head from your abdomen, leaving a warm place he heated with his jerky breath, to look at you, a strange concern in his eyes. You shook your head in response. Francis sighed, somehow in fear, went back up to you and nested himself in the crook of your neck.

“I’m afraid, I won’t be able to hold back,” he said _very_ seriously, waiting for you to change your mind, to get dressed and leave while you still could. You did none of that.

“Then don’t,” you responded and kissed Francis deeply when you saw he wanted to protest. Your hand moved down his belly, brushed gently against his manhood, which made him moan into your mouth loudly. You placed your hand onto his hip, but he took it into his bigger one and guided you to his private parts, urging you with moans and groaning to wrap your fingers around him. His hands cupped your breasts, holding tightly and rubbing the soft skin with his fingers. Your body throbbed with need and unreleased satisfaction, you mewled into Francis’s mouth, he understood your discomfort, placed himself over your body and while tenderly biting your throat slid inside you slowly but smoothly. You thought you’d feel pain, it would be uncomfortable and by the size of his manhood even impossible, but you felt nothing like it, if not just a hint of pain which might have been caused by the biting. A wave of pleasure filled your body when Francis started to move, slowly and deep at first, but with each thrust speeding up his Pace. Your hips joined his rhythm, both of you moaning and calling each other’s name when Francis hit something in you or when you tightened around him. Francis bit a lot. Your lips were swollen, your neck red and shoulders covered in bruises turning purple, droplets of blood running down your body until Francis caught them with a smooth stroke of his tongue. It felt so good and bad at the same time. Your mind was confused, twisting helplessly in a swirl of pleasure, pain and love. The only thing that kept you in reality was Francis calling your name like a prayer. His thrusts changed into almost animalistic strikes, he shut his eyes and wrapped his arms around your shoulders strongly. You whined in frustration, the edge was so close, and dug your nails deeply into his back, leaving red lines. Suddenly, the whole world stopped, your body arched towards Francis as waves of pleasure filled your insides, leaving you trembling and panting. You pulled Francis close to you and found your way to his mouth. Soon he broke the kiss, cried out as his relief stained your abdomen in hot spurts. His whines quietened into heavy panting and he collapsed by your side, still covering most of your body with his.

“You – you okay?” Francis managed to ask between jerky breaths, not able to move or do anything else.

“Yeah...” you sighed in response, enjoying the weight of his body pinning you down. The time was passing slowly, both of you drifting to sleep but fighting it and touching and caressing each other lazily in attempts to fight the slumber.

“Francis?” you squeaked when his body started to get uncomfortably hot and sticky in between, “could you move, please?”

“Sorry,” he grunted and rolled away onto the other side of the bed. You giggled at his regained sheepishness, moved to his side and placed your hand onto his frantically beating heart. That soothed him a little; he looked at you and exhaled in relief. Then he placed his head onto your chest, listening to your steady heartbeat, as if he wanted to assure himself that you were real.

“You are alive,” he whispered in husky voice, smiled in astonishment as he laid back where he was previously.

“Of course I am,” you said softly, the assurance of something so obvious seemed important to him and you didn’t want to spoil the moment by giggling or laughing. Francis took your hand into his, studying it with his look, then put it onto his cheek and growled in sweet pleasure when you caressed him tenderly, your fingers moving from his hair down to his lips, tracing along them, along the scar as well. He jerked when you touched it, but calmed when you pressed your body closer to him to nuzzle against his neck snugly, still caressing his face. Francis’s arms wrapped around you slowly, insecurely at first, but he held you strongly and protectively, not letting go, not even after you both fell asleep.

* * *

Something heavy lying on your chest and tickling your face made you squirm sleepily, hoping to put the weight somehow down, but with no success. You finally opened your eyes and slowly realised where you were and what happened. Still naked, you groped for some blanket, covered yourself and then placed your hand onto the weight pressing onto your chest. A small smile crept up to your lips when you felt short hair under your fingers and hot breath warmed your skin. While tracing down Francis’s face you noticed a small flattering movement – his eyelids opening and closing under your touch.

“Good morning,” you said in low voice and heard a sharp intake of breath, almost like in surprise.

“You are still here,” he stated, a hint of worry and insecurity in his voice, “did I hurt you?”

“No, why would you think such thing,” you felt really sore, your shoulders aching with every touch, but it was amazing at the same time, “but I could use a shower. Care to join me?”

“If you want me to,” Francis responded politely and looked at you with genuine smile. You smiled as well, waited as he crawled out of the bed to collect the clothes that were all around the room and let him guide you to the bathroom, holding his hand while he did so.

You stepped in; Francis followed you, pulled the curtains behind the two of you and turned on the water. You jerked at the sudden coldness, even let out a small squeak, but the water soon warmed up. Francis chuckled at your actions and pulled you close for a kiss. Your lips were aching a bit, but the combination of pain and pleasure as he nibbled gently onto your bottom lip was very intoxicating. You didn’t even know when exactly, but your body was suddenly covered in sweet smelling shampoo, Francis rubbing it into your back and shoulders gently. You moved your body against his, hugging him tightly to shampoo him as well.

“Turn around,” you tried to make him turn, so you could wash his back properly.

“Why?” Francis stood still, not moving at all, even his hands caressing your hips stopped.

“So I can wash your back, you dummy,” you laughed to make him relaxed, but it didn’t help.

“No,” he said flatly.

“Oh come on,” you sighed, squirmed out of his hold and stood behind him. The sight made you froze. Francis’s back was covered with a colourful tattoo of a dragon’s back, the horns covered his shoulder blades, tail wrapping around Francis’s right leg. It left you breathless, the whole painting radiant and mesmerizing. It was scary yet magnificent and beautiful.

“I wanted to tell you about it, but-” Francis’s voice broke and he didn’t try to finish his sentence as he felt your fingers trailing down his spine gently, along the dragon’s wings and Francis’s tensed muscles. He shivered; goosebumps appeared on his skin despite the warm water running down both of you.

After the shower Francis helped you dry up, wiping the towel over your shoulders but stopped quickly and took a few steps backwards in fear when you hissed in pain.

“Do you have any painkillers or something?” You wanted to ask after the breakfast, the pain in your shoulders and neck was annoying and you had to do your best to act like it was no big deal, but when he already found out how bad it was, there was no need to delay it, the sooner you get the painkiller, the better.

“Uhm,” Francis rushed to the shelf above the washbasin and after a short search gave you one small white pill. You smiled in gratitude and drank the pill down with a glass of water from the basin.

“I didn’t know it hurts this bad,” he said in low voice, looking upset.

“You worry too much, it’s okay,” you chuckled to lighten his tension and he yielded. You liked that he cared for you and wanted to protect you, but you weren’t a porcelain doll either and could manage a few bruises, “take it easy.”

After the breakfast, which turned out to be rather odd as Francis watched you the whole time you were preparing it, not letting his eyes off you even while eating, he finished his meal way sooner than you, his head in his hands while watching you eating, exchanging a few joyful looks with you, you decided it would be good to do something about the lockout.

“Could I use the Yellow pages? I need to call the key service to help me get inside aunt’s house,” you asked Francis while washing the dishes; he was drying them up and putting away, the two of you making a good team.

“Could I have a look at it first? I know how these things work,” he offered his help but you were sceptical. Already a few times you witnessed your dad’s trying to “fix everything up”, which ended up way worse than it was before; the ego of men was a mysterious thing to you. You had to look very doubtful because Francis continued with a short hesitation, probably trying to find the right words to convince you, “I – I got locked out a few times already, I know how to get into a house.”

“Really?” you turned the tap off and crossed your arms across your chest, a grin appearing on your face.

“Trust me with this one,” he assured you and hurried to pick a small work case from one of the rooms. You wanted to follow him, the adventurous part of you still wanted to see the house, however, he was too quick again but you hoped that would be plenty of time for that later.

You felt Francis shiver slightly as you arrived in front of your aunt’s house, goosebumps rose on his skin and you fought the urge to rub them all away and hug him tightly right then and there.

“The key’s in the lock, but from the inside,” you explained and he nodded in understand, trying to think of some way to get in.

“Do you – does it have a back door?” he asked after a while of thinking, “I think I might get in that way and unlock the main door from the inside.”  
You guided him to the back garden, around the pool and to the back door. He placed the work case down, took a few lock picks from it and started to pinch and twist them gently in the lock. Breathlessly, you watched Francis unlocking the door. He really looked like a man who knew what he was doing. After a short while, he turned the doorknob and let you in.

“Wow,” you exhaled in surprise and relief as you really doubted his skills and now you felt a bit ashamed for it, “thank you.”

“Told you to trust me,” Francis laughed slightly and placed his hand to your lower back to push you in gently.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” you laughed too, enjoying Francis’s merry mood, “now, come in.”

Francis followed you slowly, stopped in the middle of the living room and waited for you to take the key from the front door. You saw him looking all around curiously, taking a few steps forward or to the side when he wanted to see what’s around the corner. He really looked like a cat being in new surroundings, looking all around and trying to find some comfortable spot.

“Do you want me to show you the rooms?” you asked politely, entertained by his weird behaviour, but hiding it successfully. Francis nodded eagerly and took your hand to let you know that you can begin. After Francis examined all the rooms carefully, stopping now and then to look at the family photos and asking you to explain who were the people or looking out of the window in your room for quite a time, examining his garden and house from that angle, you sat down in the living room, Francis sitting rather stiffly, legs pressed close to each other, hands on his knees, sipping the orange juice you offered him and listening to your talking, answering your questions briefly while fighting an unexpected restlessness in his trousers.

“Are you okay? You look strange,” you frowned when you noticed that Francis’s discomfort didn’t look like fading after some time, just the opposite, he was growing more and more nervous.

“I need to go home,” he responded, his voice huskier than ever.

“Why? What’s wrong?” you were in the house for less than an hour, surely Francis can’t be homesick after so short time.

“I – umm,” he tried to think of some excuse, giving a brief look down to his crotch and closing his eyes for a moment to breathe deeply. You looked down there too and finally understood what was going on.

“You’re staying here, it will be alright,” you took his arm gently but firmly when he wanted to stand up and he huffed in protest, giving you a pained look, but none of that persuaded you to let him go.

You sat onto his lap, straddling him and wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him softly at first. Francis groaned into your mouth when he felt you rubbing against his arousal in no hurry, without any rhythm, just as if by accident. Your hands caressed his stiff shoulders which melted slowly under your touch until Francis was relaxed, then traced up to his hair and pulled gently now and then, your mouth not moving away from his, not letting him catch his breath and ravishing his insides avidly. He moaned softly when you moved down his neck, nibbling and sucking onto his pulse, leaving pink marks, his hands running through your hair tenderly, letting the locks run through his fingers freely. You started to rub against his lap in a faster Pace, your hands rolling his shirt up and touching every muscle on his chest and belly, slowly going south, but stopping at the hem of the jeans, not moving lower. Francis sighed heavily as you pressed harder against his lap and slipped his hands under your tee shirt as well, moving up and down your ribs and struggling with undoing your bra for a moment. It was your turn to moan when he cupped your breasts in his hands, gently caressing with his fingers and worrying them with his teeth through the fabric of the tee shirt. Francis traced his hands down to your hips, grabbed them firmly and started to thrust you against him the way he needed, moaning louder and louder. You joined his moans with your quieter ones, nibbling his earlobe, peppering kisses along his jaw up to his mouth again.

“Your – your aunt?” Francis pulled away to look at you, his eyes hazed with unreleased relief as he grunted between the thrusts, a miracle that he could keep his head at least a bit cool while doing this kind of activities.

“She’ll come in the evening,” you responded and let him bite onto your shoulder softly; keeping an eye on the strength he bit you with.

Francis slid lower on the couch for better friction, threw his head back and while groaning speeded up even more, rubbing himself against you too. After a short while his husky grunts quietened, he shuddered and jerked his hips violently against yours a few times, wide – eyed, his mouth opened in a soundless cry. He let you get off him, but pulled you close to his chest, squeezing you tightly and still breathing heavily, shuffling his legs and squirming uncomfortably from time to time.

“But now I really need to go home,” Francis whispered to your ear with a smile and kissed it softly afterwards, which caused a fit of giggles from you and he soon followed you with his own deep chuckling.

You spent the rest of the day together, followed Francis home and after he changed his clothes, he took you into his arms and threw onto his bed. When he laid beside you and started his kissing and biting routine, tickling you and whispering sweet nothings that made you both laugh, you thought that Francis was way too eager and his stamina was endless, but he hadn’t done anything else and after a while stopped to let you both rest a bit. In the messy blanket and pillow nest you found yourself in you were just looking at Francis, examining him closely, touching his face, this time he didn’t try to move aside when you rubbed the area around the scar he had on his upper lip. Then you began a small chat, which turned into an actual talk. You asked Francis plenty of questions and he was speaking.  A lot. You asked him once again about his work, then moved to more private topics, asking him about some previous relationships. With his face buried in the crook of your neck to hide his embarrassment he admitted that he never had anyone before you. To light up the situation a bit, you asked him to tell you something about his family, but that didn’t end up as well as you thought. Briefly and with an odd coldness and distance, Francis explained that he didn’t know where his parents were, that they are probably dead by now and he spent his childhood with his grandmother that lived in that house. It was your time to feel uncomfortable; you apologised for being too curious and stayed silent, not knowing what to do next. It left you quite aback when Francis suddenly asked whether you’d like him to tell you about a trip to China he had made. It seemed to you it was Francis’s attempt to change the topic and make you feel better, which he truly did. You were listening in awe, the thought of Francis travelling in a plane was pretty odd and when he finished you even managed to persuade him to show you the tattoo again and he didn’t hesitate that much this time.  The painting was even more beautiful from distance and when Francis moved, it looked like the dragon on his back came to life. It was the dragon from Blake’s painting you saw in the museum and you finally understood why Francis spent so much time gazing at it. You tried not to look too eager when Francis offered to show you his house and let him guide you from one room to another with his hand wrapping around your waist gently. The rooms were pretty much the same, yet you had a feeling there was something different in each one of them, the atmosphere lightening in otherwise gloomy looking rooms when Francis’s voice echoed in them. You didn’t even know how, time seemed unimportant in Francis’s presence, but suddenly it was almost dark, the tall lamps were lightening the empty streets.

After you finally managed to explain him that you really had to go back home, Francis accompanied you, looking a bit miserable.

“What’s wrong?” you asked him while standing in the doorway unlocking the door.

“Nothing,” Francis tried to hide his sadness but with no success. You looked him in the eyes, waiting for him to continue. He started to mumble something incoherent, but the point was that he didn’t want you to go home and wanted to spend another night with you.

“You’re sweet,” you couldn’t help yourself, kissed him tenderly; he returned the kiss in his own, a bit timid way, “you know I can’t, I need to be in bed by the time aunt gets home.”

“And tomorrow?” he pulled away to look at you, trying his puppy eyes again.

“I can’t stay overnight, but as soon as aunt leaves for work, I’ll come,” you muttered to the crook of his neck, nibbling the soft skin now and then, “but you have to promise me that you’ll workout tonight. Deal?”

“Will you be watching?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Deal.” Francis finally let go of his grip on you and waited for you to go inside, only then he left himself.

After you had a quick supper and changed into your pyjamas, you leaned against the windowsill like usually and waited for Francis to come. You didn’t have to wait long. You waved in greeting; he did the same and started stretching himself and then lifting the weights, giving you a quick look from time to time, you giggling in response. You were too occupied with drooling over Francis that you didn’t notice the roaring sound of aunt’s car parking. Luckily, Francis did, stopped his workout and leaned against his window to have a better look at what was going on outside. He gesture you to go in bed, when he saw your aunt entering the house and carried on with lifting the weights, so he wouldn’t look suspicious. Even though you didn’t want to obey him and keep looking, you curled into the blankets and pretended you were fast asleep. Soon after you did so, you heard aunt opening your door and checking you. You managed to slow down your breathing into deep steady breaths, but the fake sleep soon turned into real one.

* * *

The first thing you saw in the morning, just as you opened your eyes was Francis. For a moment you thought it was a dream, but his big hand caressing your arm made you think otherwise.

“Hi?” you whispered in confusion, it was too early for you to think properly.

“Good morning,” Francis responded quietly, his face lightening up when he saw you waking up. He was sitting on the carpet, leaning against your bed and waiting for you to wake up, his face just a few inches from yours, examining you closely while you were sleeping.

“What – what are you doing here?” you squirmed sleepily, not planning to get up just yet.

“Your aunt left at six. I didn’t want you to be alone,” he explained shortly, puffing up his chest proudly, the care in his voice clearly audible.

“Oh god, Francis,” you rubbed your eyes tiredly. You didn’t want to spoil his joy, but what he did was just too weird and wrong. What if aunt came back? “I’m flattered, I truly am, but you can’t do things like this.”

“I couldn’t wait,” Francis suppressed a big yawn and just now you noticed the condition he was in: he had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was messy and even though he was happy and extremely satisfied with what he had done, he looked really sleepy and exhausted.

“When did you go to bed?” you ruffled his hair even more than it already was and made him look into your eyes when you noticed that he tried to squirm out of your hold.

“I couldn’t wait,” Francis repeated flatly.

“Come here then,” you sighed heavily at this statement and just hoped he won’t do it again while shifting slowly to make enough space for Francis to join you in the bed.

“I – I think I’m too tired to satisfy you-” he scratched his head and reddened brightly, the nervousness filling his whole being.

“What? No, no, I don’t want you to – ” you stopped to think of some way to name the kind of activities you two did, but Francis seemed to understand your intentions so you continued, “just lay here.”

Francis had to be too tired to object because he obeyed you without a word. He laid himself behind your back, wrapped his arm around your waist to pull you to lean against his body and moved your hair to expose the back of your neck. You interlocked your fingers together and felt yourself drifting off again as Francis pulled your tee shirt aside and rubbed his lips against the soft skin of your neck, his hot breath making all worries about what was happening go away.

* * *

“I have... a little homework,” Francis said from his living room. You were in the kitchen looking for something to drink, he told you there were several coke bottles in the fridge, but you had no idea where.

“Alright,” you responded while heading back to the living room with two cold bottles you managed to find, “I can go home if I’m keeping you from work.”

“Don’t,” he looked at you as he took the offered drink, “it’s just s – some videos I have to check. They are boring; I want you to keep me company.”

You nodded and when Francis sat down onto one of the big couches you followed him, resting against his hard chest. He stretched his arm to turn on the projector, the room was filled with quiet clicking sound of the running machine and a flash of light lightened the white canvas Francis had placed several metres from the couch you were sitting on. For some time you were just resting there, both sipping from your bottles, Francis trying to focus on the content of the films – families on holidays, birthday parties or kids playing in the pools on sunny weekends, all happy and smiling, but when you glanced upwards at him, you saw that he was struggling with keeping his attention. Feeling a bit selfish that you’ll let him “suffer” alone, you slipped lower and laid your head onto his thigh, your face turned to his torso so you were closer to him and didn’t have to watch the families, their carefreedom and happiness making you upset and irritated. Instinctively, Francis started to play with your hair; his fingers were massaging your scalp and running through your locks, pulling tenderly now and then, making his homework at least a bit enjoyable. He let out a relieved sigh when the light coming from the projector turned off at last and the clicking sound quietened. You were almost asleep already, but woke up when you felt Francis’s thigh tensing.

“Done?” you asked after you finished your coke and started to rub the sleepiness from your eyes. Francis just nodded, unable to speak as he was hiding a big yawn with both of his hands. You noticed that Francis’s bottle was empty as well so you took both of them and headed to the kitchen.

“What about you?” you heard his question from the living room as you were on your way back, but had no idea what he was talking about.

“What about me?”

“Tell me about your family,” Francis turned on the couch so he was looking at you and noticed unease in your walk.

“Nothing interesting,” you let out a small forced laugh, but stood still in the middle of the room, not able to move any further and started to feel tears burning in your eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Francis frowned and stood up to come to you. You opened your mouth to response; however, no words came out because of a lump in your throat. The tears were running down your cheeks freely now, you didn’t even try to stop them as it was impossible. At first Francis didn’t know how to react, he was just standing there, his hand froze on its way to caress your cheek, the sight of your tears stopped him. He didn’t object when you took a few small steps and leaned against him, your whole body pressing tightly against his tensed muscles and trying to make no space between the two of you, your hands holding strongly the front of his tee shirt already soaked with tears. Several seconds passed, you both kept still – Francis didn’t move, did not touch you but let you cry into his tee shirt, then he asked again: “What’s wrong?”

“Divorce,” after a short silence you whispered a bit incoherently into his chest and wrapped your arms around his torso as tightly as you could. You felt Francis’s chest let out a deep sigh and his hand on your hair.

“Do you want to speak about it?” he pulled your head away softly to look at you.

“Don’t know,” you gave him a brief look, the tears weren’t stopping, just the opposite when Francis pulled you to him again, his hand rubbing your back carefully, the other one buried in your hair and pressing you closer. You didn’t know for how long you were standing in the middle of Francis’s living room, crying and sobbing helplessly, all your pent up desperation and frustration from your parent’s splitting up finally releasing. Francis was holding you patiently, didn’t say a word, didn’t hush you to stop crying, didn’t say it would be okay, just stood there and let you lean against him. It felt good when he said none of that. When he felt your body growing weak and your legs starting to shake from exhaustion he lifted you up and moved to sit onto the couch with you in his arms. Francis placed you onto his lap and continued his quiet soothing.

“I’m sorry,” you managed to mumble into his shoulder after you calmed a bit even though you were still crying but at least you weren’t a sobbing and trembling mess.

“Don’t be,” Francis responded seriously and lifted your chin up to look at you.

“You were keeping all of...” he couldn’t quite name the situation of your parents breaking up, so for a second he was looking somewhere behind you, trying to make up something, but with no success, “...this inside until now, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” you admitted and looked down, feeling bad for having such outbreak just in front of Francis – the only one who wasn’t somehow involved and didn’t even know about it. It always felt so weird for you to cry in someone’s presence or to bother someone with your problems, so you just kept it to yourself and if you really had to, you waited for parents to fall asleep and just after that dared to cry into your pillow, so no one would hear you.

Francis placed his lips to yours, not really kissing you, just touching and rubbing as he ordered gently, “let it out, all of it.”

The frustration and anger you’ve been hiding for so long were now leaking out and his teasing, even though Francis was probably unaware of it, was too much for you to handle any longer. You broke the distance between your and his lips, kissing Francis almost angrily, biting onto his lips until you felt the saltiness of his blood and ravishing his insides, your tears making Francis’s cheeks moist and your hand clutching his wrist fiercely. You didn’t know what was happening, you were confused, still angry at your parents, the only one you could hold onto was Francis, who didn’t stop your crying, and was returning your kisses softly, never wanting to hurt you and letting you drain all your pain onto him, letting you harm him without saying a word.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered again when you pulled away as you were short of breath and saw droplets of blood forming on Francis’s lips.

“Don’t be,” he repeated and wiped a drop of tear hanging on your chin. You felt your eyes aching from the long cry as the tears were slowly stopping but leaving your cheeks all wet. Suddenly, Francis let go of his grip and a wave of coldness came over your body when he did so. He squirmed uncomfortably while pulling his neatly tugged tee shirt but then took it off swiftly. With you again in his hold, he took the already soaked tee shirt and started to wipe your cheeks with it, rubbing the soft fabric against your skin carefully, not leaving any wet trace of tear behind. After he was done with his work he wiped the blood on his lips with it and placed the piece of clothing aside.

“Any better?” Francis’s slight frown was replaced by a tender smile, and even though it was just small, it made you truly feel better.

“Yeah,” you wiped your puffy eyes, “thank you.”

You placed your hands onto his hard chest as Francis leaned close to you again, about to seal your mouth in a kiss once more, his nose touching yours.

“I-” a sudden rumbling sound in Francis’s stomach cut him off and made him turn bright red. Even though you weren’t really in the mood and didn’t mean to, you burst into laughter, hushing it with your hands but with no success. Francis himself was fighting his own laughter, trying to stay serious, his lips curling upwards even though he was fighting it with all his will.

“I’ll make something to eat,” you sniffed with your head pressed against his chest while calming yourself, then looked up and placed a soft peck onto his cheek, “want to help me?”

Wordlessly, with a small smile and brightly twinkling eyes only, Francis lifted you up and headed with you towards the kitchen, ignoring the persistent rumbling noises in his stomach this time.

* * *

Days started to flow really quickly with Francis around. Your visit turned out to be even more enjoyable and you were dreading the day you’d have to go home at last. Sometimes you found yourself thinking about the emptiness and boredom you’d have once you come back home, but those thought were often pushed aside as you were hardly ever alone now. Most of the time you spent only with Francis, together you made small walks, he showed you the surroundings, you watched films and read books together when the weather turned bad, but were mostly curled in his bed and having long discussions until it got dark or until one of you decided to do some other activities that took place in bed. Sometimes even after aunt Molly came home and went to bed, you crept out into the garden and chatted with Francis over the fence. Sometimes, however, Francis was acting rather odd, somehow different and distant but you understood him and had learnt that it was better to leave him alone for a few hours. It made both of you cherish the moments you were together even more. It was all very pleasant but you feared it was too nice to last.

* * *

“Y/N, wake up,” a quiet voice and a persistent hand shaking your shoulder gently made you squirm in the bed, trying to get rid of the disturber and fall back asleep.

“Wake up.”

“Just leave me, Francis-” you turned around, opened your eyes and were about to scold Francis for waking you up and walking into your house without you knowing it at all, he’d done it a few times already and you told yourself that you’d need to have a small talk about it with him, but your words got stuck in your throat in midsentence as you didn’t see Francis’s muscular silhouette leaning over your bed, but your aunt’s slender figure instead, her non formal clothing making you even more surprised.

“What?” you let out a small yelp of confusion and didn’t know how to react as your aunt was the last person you’d expect to wake you up, or be home this late in general.

“I forgot to tell you and you were already asleep when I came yesterday,” she began and you had to suppress a mischievous smirk making its way up to your lips when you remembered your aunt walking into your room soon after Francis gestured you to do so from his window – you definitely weren’t sleeping. It became sort of a habit by now: you watched Francis working out in the evening and when aunt arrived home, he gestured you to go to bed.

“But anyway, get dressed; we’re going to the zoo.”

* * *

You thought that going to the zoo at your age and with aunt you hardly knew would be awful and boring, but, to your surprise, it was quite nice. Relaxing, in a way. You really liked being in Francis’s presence, he was always sweet and polite, well, most of the times, you enjoyed it very much when he wasn’t but those times usually involved no clothes and a bed or a couch, but he was a man and even though he tried his best and you both had terrific times he couldn’t give you the attention a woman could. Being with your aunt and having her full attention, you found yourself speaking freely about all those things you couldn’t discuss neither with mom and dad, nor Francis. While wandering through the huge complex of the zoo and looking at the colourful exotic birds, you found yourself having a proper girl talk, not feeling a single bit of shame in you, it felt totally normal and natural. You’d never guessed that aunt Molly could make you so relaxed – you almost told her about Francis, but snapped back quickly enough and said that you found yourself “a friend” from the neighbourhood instead, smiling brightly in response when aunt smirked knowingly and gave you a small pat of approval. Together you had a small lunch in one of the snack bars that were at the zoo. You couldn’t remember eating a better hotdog, even though it was absolutely ordinary, too hot and with not enough ketchup, but aunt could turn even the most boring thing into something special and funny. While walking past the tigers and lions a sudden wave of curiosity filled your mind and you asked about aunt’s neighbour, Mr. Dolarhyde. With a small blush, which you decided to ignore, aunt told you that he’s really a mystery to everyone in the neighbourhood, nobody really knows him. She said that she only had a few small chats, too short in her opinion, as there was so much she liked to ask him, but he kept his distance. Aunt’s blush grew wider when she admitted that he looks too hot to be so shy and that she actually tried to seduce him (you found yourself being jealous for a while), but stopped after several weeks with no success as she saw there was really no interest on the other side and after that she seriously considered the thought that he might be gay. You couldn’t help yourself but asked whether she still thinks so and after she stopped a fit of giggles, aunt said that she doesn’t think so now.

On your way back home in the evening, however, you started to miss Francis, even though you knew you were being childish – you were apart for less than a day and he had probably things to do as well, but you found yourself thinking about coming home and watching him lift his weights as usual. Despite of tiredness of both of you, aunt kept a nice chat flowing while driving back home, driving a bit quicker than it was allowed as it was really late and probably no one except you was on the road.

When you finally arrived home and saw light in Francis’s window, the tiredness faded in a second and you became restless. Aunt Molly, on the other hand, just took a quick shower and wished you good night. You went to the bed as well in attempt to fall asleep, but gave up after a short time. While watching Francis working out, you waved at him several times and when he finally saw you and waved back, he disappeared somewhere in his room so you couldn’t see him and after a while you couldn’t see anything at all as he turned the lights off. With a frown of confusion, you kept staring into the darkness, awaiting any sign of Francis’s presence and when you were about to go back to bed and try to fall asleep again you saw a stream of light in his garden, probably from a torch. When the light went up to the fence between Francis’s garden and your aunt’s and flashed into your window unexpectedly, you squinted your eyes, but understood what Francis wanted you to do, even though you didn’t think it was a good idea at all.

After you went down the stairs as carefully and as possible, you quickly pulled on some sneakers in the hall and opened the back door slowly, so it wouldn’t creak. Quietly, you made your way up to the fence where a brightly smiling Francis was waiting for you, leaning against the picket fence and lightening your way to him with the torch.

“Come here,” he pulled you playfully to the fence and leaned over to kiss you, the rest of his sentence drowned out by your lips, so he repeated it after you pulled away, “I’ve missed you, where have you been?”

“Aunt took me to the zoo,” you managed to whisper quickly because as soon as you pulled away from Francis to let him finish what he was about to say, he wrapped his arm around your neck and you found yourself hugging him through the fence, which wasn’t really that comfortable, the wood was rough, sometimes even prickly and you were just in your panties and a tee shirt.

“Francis?” his shoulder you were pushed against muffled your voice so it was hardly audible.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not complaining,” you freed your head from his hold to breathe freely, “but this is a bit uncomfortable.”

“Uhm,” Francis leaned over the fence and took you by your hips, “be quiet.”

“What?” you didn’t understand at first, but quickly did as his hands gripped you tighter and lifted you up and helped you over the fence. Even though it was kind of a shock, you were not lifted this way on the daily basis, you let out only a quiet surprised squeak.

“Now,” Francis led you to one of his big apple trees and put some of the lower hanging branches aside, so they won’t get tangled in your hair. In the small shelter the branches made, just by the bole there was a thick blanket laid out, “tell me everything about your little trip.”

“Hey, wait a second,” you stood there for a moment to overcome the wave of amazement. Even though it was just an ordinary blanket placed under a tree, it surprised you that Francis was capable of such thing. He saw your reaction and hid his smile of satisfaction as he pushed you gently to lie down and followed you, his legs tangled with yours to keep you warm, despite the nice, not too hot weather.

“How have you been doing today, then?” he turned off the torch and you were left in complete darkness.

“Actually, there isn’t much to say,” you kept your eyes closed and opened them after a while to adjust to the dark surroundings and were looking at Francis curled by your side, “we had a nice chat with aunt and saw some animals. It was quite pleasant...”

Francis’s hand wandering up and down your body made you lost the lane of speaking, you were struggling with keeping yourself focused and talked more or less incoherently, but then gave up completely, “...but I could have just stayed home.”

“Why?” Francis stopped, lifted his head to look at you with a slight frown.

“I don’t have to go to the zoo to see a tiger,” with a smirk you caressed the shell of his ear, “I have one right over here.”

Francis was about to response to the first part of your sentence, but when you finished, you heard his breath got stuck. He leaned over you, breathing heavily, one of his hands cupping your cheek, the other tracing down to your waist and pulling up your tee shirt to expose the white stomach. It looked like Francis was considering where to kiss you. His lips touched the hollow of your neck, then moved upwards along your pulse, kissing and licking softly, no biting this time. It was strange, but you didn’t want to spoil the moment by asking about it. You were already breathing heavily, almost panting, when he reached your lips. His tongue brushed slightly against your lower lip, then the upper lip to make you let him enter. His kisses were slow, lingering, you felt him smiling against your mouth and let him lead. Slowly, Francis started to move downwards again, drawing a line on your body with his finger, then peppering kisses where his finger made its way. His cheek brushed against your breast, without paying any more attention to it. When Francis felt soft fabric of your underwear under his lips, he finally stopped and glanced upwards to look at you. Your eyes hazed with need and unreleased pleasure connected with his sparkling ones and with an unspoken allowance you gave him he proceeded. Grasping the hem of the panties with his teeth, he pulled them to your thighs, then down to your calves with his hand. Gently, he took your leg into his hands and slipped the clothing over your foot, so it was only on one of your legs. Francis’s attention came back to your entrance, he gave you one quicker look, but when he saw your eyes snap shut and your chest lifting up and down frantically, he placed one of your legs over his shoulder, supporting it with his firm hold and started to rub his face along your inner thigh up to your core, then flicking his tongue over it in rehearsal. In almost torturously slow Pace Francis brushed his lips against you, tasting you, dipping his tongue in and exploring your reactions, playing with you the way he wanted and taking his time. His hand made its way up to your breasts, holding tenderly, but tightening his grip and running his fingers around your hard nub ever so often. Your hand buried in his hair and pulling or pushing his head further from time to time, as well as your moans muffled by the back of your other hand made him quicken his actions or slow down and concentrate on your clit instead. You were on the edge already and when Francis pushed two of his fingers slowly inside and moved them around carefully, you hushed a loud groan escaping your throat. It didn’t take long and your tries to hush yourself were almost useless. You were mewling and squirming under his gentle but firm hold, your tee shirt getting sticky from the sweat, one of his hands holding your chest down, the other preventing your leg from slipping down from Francis’s shoulder. When you were shuddering too much and pushing his head towards your core stronger than before, Francis doubled his effort and it took him just a few seconds to make you see that well known white light and arch your back in helpless effort to push him even further into you. He slowed down into lazy kisses only and after you finally calmed, he gave you one last kiss and pulled himself up to lie beside you. He pecked you briefly, but still softly; you almost didn’t recognise it as you were still recovering from his previous actions.

 While lying next to you, he unzipped his jeans hastily and freed his manhood from their hold. Francis let out a raspy sigh as he gripped himself strongly and started to pump himself in violent Pace. After you started to notice things around you again, you heard his raspy breaths and saw the movements of his hand.

“Francis, let me...” you rolled over to him, not caring about the leaves tangled in your hair and placed your hand onto his thigh.

“No,” he grunted, almost barked at you and gave you a quick glance, his pupils dilated widely, “not this time.”

“Please,” you moved your hand upwards to his manhood, hoping he’d let you proceed. He did. He stopped his angry strokes, put his hand away and watched you curl your fingers around him.

“Harder,” Francis demanded huskily, “grip me harder.”

You obeyed him, gripping him as hard as you thought would be enough, but he took your hand into his, holding himself even stronger as he started to move up and down again with your smaller hand in his. His strokes were speeding up ferociously, your hands moving faster and faster with every pass. Francis’s head was thrown back, eyes wide opened and unfocused, lips apart inhaling sharply and letting out strangled huffs. Your mouth made its way to his tensed neck and kissed and nibbled onto the reddening skin. It didn’t take long, soon were Francis’s hips arching forward and thrusting into your fists jerkily. Suddenly, Francis tugged your hand away, gripped himself and after a few last violent strokes his hips buckled upwards one last time and he finished into his fist with a small cry hushed with his other hand. Both of his hands then fell freely down to the ground, one with bruises from his biting, the second slick with the pearly fluid and he kept panting for a while, until his heartbeat turned to normal again.

 You were lying by his side, head still full of what you have just witnessed. It scared you a bit, the tenderness Francis caressed you with and the reckless roughness of his strokes, almost like a torture, but still, you couldn’t keep yourself away from him and even though you didn’t feel brave enough to curl to his side, you at least held his usually hard and tensed biceps, which was now limp and soft. It, however, hardened again when Francis sat up to clean himself with some tissues.

“Are you alright?” you approached him carefully, rubbing his back wet from sweat without caring about it.

“Uhm,” he turned to you, took your hands into his bigger one and pinned them above your head while sealing your mouth in another sweet kiss.

“Come,” Francis helped you stand up and lifted the branches aside again to let you proceed to the fence. You pulled your panties back on and followed him obediently. When he helped you over the fence, you wished him goodnight and were about to come back to bed as you were starting to feel tired, but his hand holding your arm didn’t let you go.

“Y/N,” he called after you when you took a few steps backwards and felt his hold stopping you, “I... I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?” you leaned against the fence to listen. His hand found its way to yours, your fingers interlocking. Francis kept quiet. You knew he sometimes needed time to encourage himself or to think properly about what he was about to say, so you waited patiently for him to inhale deeply and begin.

“I think I love you.”

Your breath hitched as you were expecting him to say some bad news, not this. Even though you were together for quite a time already, he never told you this. He showed you how much he cared for you, but never said it aloud. You freed your hand from his hold and moved it to caress his cheek, which felt hot against your touch. Was he blushing? A small smile crept up to your lips, “I think the same.”

Francis bent down over you, his breath warming your lips and making you dizzy.

“Very very much,” he whispered and connected your lips together, his tongue brushing against yours slowly, not trying to tease you, but enjoying the moment. A very long moment. “And I want you to know this... and remember.”

“Can you promise me?” he broke the kiss involuntarily and looked into your eyes wet from the emotions ravishing your being, his hands cupping your cheeks.

“Yes,” you whispered in response, promising yourself you’d never forget it.

Francis wiped the wetness from your eyes with his thumbs and placed a kiss onto your forehead, “go now. Good night.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get a bit complicated... I had to, I'm sorry.

Then Francis disappeared for the whole week. You didn’t know what happened. At first you thought that he had a lot of work or had to travel somewhere, but when you saw his van parked outside in the evening and even noticed lights in his windows, you didn’t understand it. When you knew he was home, you knocked and rang the doorbell, but with no response. Once you saw him driving away, but didn’t see him coming in the evening, nor the evening after. The time started to go unbelievably slowly, just like in the beginning, during the first several days of your visit. You spent your days wandering helplessly from one room to another, sometimes went outside, often spent time watching telly – all the channels were however filled with the weird murderer dad was supposed to catch and you had learnt a lot about him, but nothing helped you fight the restlessness and the fact that your mind was full of theories why was Francis acting that way didn’t help either and made you even angry. The anger changed into sadness which you tried to cure with the thoughts of all the nice things you did, but making it even worse instead. During the evenings you kept watching Francis working out as usual, but stopped it as a bitter idea that he might not want to be with you pierced your mind and didn’t seem to go away. You were confused. Francis was always fond of your presence, he liked it when you let him lay in your lap and played with his hair, you watched those home videos together and laughed at some of them, he assisted you when you were cooking, and oh god, he even assisted you while taking a shower. He knew you so well, you surrendered to him completely, trusted him utterly with everything he did and now pretended that all of those things you did together, all those talks and kisses you shared never happened. You knew it was hard to make him relaxed in your presence, to befriend him and you thought that he’s not that type of a man that would leave without a word when he get bored. He, however, didn’t leave without a word. You remembered very clearly what he had said. “I think I love you... very very much.” He wanted you to remember it and you did. Every night, when you saw light coming from his windows, but didn’t stand up to look at him and stayed in bed instead, you kept recalling those words and his kiss all over again until you fell asleep with tears soaked in your cheeks.

* * *

One morning, when you couldn’t bear Francis’s weird behaviour anymore, you decided to approach him once more and make him explain his actions. After making sure he was home you got dressed and went out, locking the door properly this time. While walking to his house, you tried to think of what to tell him, how to begin, but nothing you could actually say came to your mind. It was all awkward, you felt like you were in one of those teenage films with complicated relationships and all kinds of humiliating scandals.

When you finally stepped in front of the dark wooden door you knew so well by now, as well as almost the whole house, you rang the bell and waited. It was almost like the first time – you were nervous, didn’t know what to expect or what to say if Francis opened the door at all. He didn’t, but you thought it would be like this so you rang again, this time pushing the button persistently and longer than before. You heard footsteps going down the stairs slowly and stopped, it was quite torturous for you too – you heard the ringing sound even though you were outside. However, the steps coming your way stopped too, but when you started to knock loudly enough, they proceeded. A small part of you was satisfied yet – you made Francis at least open the door. But when you saw him through the narrow gap as he did so, breath got stuck in your throat and your eyes widened in shock. Francis’s hairstyle wasn’t neat and short anymore – it was messy and longer than it should be, his face was framed with stubble, making him look even intimidating, if you didn’t know him so well. What was more; Francis’s face was covered with bruises and small wounds, there were dark circles under his eyes, the gleam that appeared each time he saw you was gone and replaced with a mixture of pain, not just physical, but psychical also, misery and bitterness you saw only once – when he made you admit your feelings towards him.

“What?” he said with a voice so distant from his usual low rumble similar to purring of one of the tigers you saw in the zoo. This, however, made you shudder.

“Let me in,” you asked with your voice as stable as you were capable of, “please.”

“No,” he stood in the doorway and you noticed bruises not just on his face, but arms and knuckles as well.

“Let me in,” you repeated flatly, emphasising every word. After a short hesitation, which seemed to you like eternity, Francis moved aside and led you to the living room. It looked even darker than before, even though there was no change, except for the atmosphere in it. None of you sat down, you were standing, Francis kept his distance like the first time you visited him, this time, however, making it a bit shorter.

“What does this mean?” when the silence was too much to bear, you inhaled deeply to begin.

“Nothing,” Francis’s answers turned into one word growls again.

“You were gone for the whole damned week without saying anything!” you started to swear and your voice got louder and louder due to the anger caused by his ignorant-like behaviour, “I would understand if you told me you were not interested anymore, I really would, but you ignored me! Do you have any idea how I felt after you told me-” your voice broke as tears burned in your eyes and started to run down your face in a sudden outbreak, “-after you told me you loved me and then just went away? You wanted me to remember it and I did, Francis!”

“I mean it,” Francis whispered hoarsely, looking at the soft carpet under his feet instead of you, “I love you... And I want you to know it, but... I can’t be with you anymore.”

You were prepared for this, yet it still made a series of broken-hearted sobs escape your throat against your will. Through the tears you saw that Francis wanted to embrace you, soothe your cries and never let go, you knew he wanted to touch you as desperately as you wanted to be held by him. Neither of you however dared to cross the invisible barrier between.

“Why?” a quiet, barely audible whisper echoed in the room.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Francis stated shortly, the roughness in his voice not going away.

You dared to take a step towards him, “then explain it.”

“I can’t let _Him_ hurt you.” Francis stepped backwards, his eyes wide in fear. He was scared.

“There’s no one but us, Francis,” you were confused, you had seen Francis in many situations, but never like this. He was clutching the sleeves of his shirt, damp patches of sweat appearing on his chest as he was breathing heavily. Involuntarily, he glanced to the ceiling quickly and you understood. Sooner than he could say anything or stop you, you sprinted to the staircase, taking three stairs at a time, making your way up to the attic with Francis behind your back trying to stop you. You swung the door open and stepped inside the only room you hadn’t been in before as Francis didn’t want you to go there and even avoided speaking about it at all. Blood was pulsating in your veins and making your head ache, your eyes searching for _him_ , but you were right. The room was darkened, except for one window you recognised too well. In the corner there were Francis’s weights, carpets similar to those in the living room were lying on the wooden floor, a massive table covered with old newspapers and clippings, almost in the centre stood a thick book on a stool and The Great Red Dragon And Woman Clothed In Sun from William Blake on a taller stand, an old-fashioned mirror shattered into pieces next to the painting. There was only you and Francis. You turned around to look at him, bewildered, not knowing what to do next or what to say.

“Only me and you...” you said plainly, the feeling there’s something very wrong with Francis growing stronger and stronger with each second he kept still and quiet.

“... And _Him_ ,” Francis added and pointed his finger towards the drawing on the stand.

“It is only a picture,” you responded slowly as he stepped closer.

“ _He_ bites! I can’t fight _Him_ any longer... _The Dragon_ wants you...” Francis took you by your arm and tried to pull you, “...please go away!”

His hold was strong, the fingers gripping your biceps held you tightly, too tightly.

“Francis, let me go!” you did your best to sound calm, but your voice betrayed you and Francis’s frightened eyes met your teary ones. All of a sudden, he let go of his hold, almost like if you were burning his skin and he couldn’t bear it any longer.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Francis collapsed to your feet with a broken sob. Almost automatically, your hands reached down to touch him and you buried your fingers into his hair and caressed his shoulder. You missed the feeling of his skin under your palms, but this was not how you wanted it to be.

“You can’t be with me anymore, please... I – _He_... We do bad things... _He_ wants you so much; you have no idea what - what _He_ would do to you... Please...” Francis was sobbing desperately, crying in pain and agony, trembling with you in his hold, he was clutching your waist firmly, unable to control himself anymore or hide his fear, his flowing tears damping your clothes strongly, “Y/N, please, I _kill people_...”

Francis killed people.

Francis was The Red Dragon. They were one.

“No,” you stuttered and lifted his head up to look at you, “No you don’t... You can’t... No!”

Francis didn’t answer. He loosened his grip on you and watched you stumbling backwards, towards the staircase, his heavy cries drowning your quickly leaving steps. You were afraid. Terrified. Oafishly, he stood up and after you went down and back to the hall, he followed you.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in the doorway as you opened his door and were half way out. You turned to him and wrapped your arm around his neck strongly one last time without fully knowing what were you doing, pulled him down to your level and crushed your mouths together in a deep, ferocious kiss full of tears. Yours and Francis’s. After a moment he pushed you away with a pained growl.

“Don’t – don’t come back, please.” Francis gave you one last look hazed with tears and slammed the door behind you.

Not completely aware of what you were doing, you went back home with your mind in a big blur, kicked your shoes off in the hall, not caring which way they’d fly. Your head was spinning too much to bear it any longer, you wanted to pretend that nothing happened, that everything was fine and this was only a dream. You curled in the couch, found a blanket on the ground, pulled it up to clutch it, pretending it was Francis, who you were holding. It was probably only your imagination, but you felt his scent on the fabric. You didn’t know what to do. Images of him and you together were flashing through your mind and never stopping, just like tears running down your face restlessly. The room was filled with sobs you couldn’t hold any longer and shaky breathing when you realised you’d never see him again. It was all too nice. You loved Francis more than you thought, more than he could ever imagine. For a moment he made you forget why you were here, he made you feel like everything was normal again. His touches were so soft and caring, so were his lips on your skin. He would never harm you, wouldn’t be able to do anything bad to you, you were sure of it and yet, he did bad things. You didn’t want to believe it, it couldn’t be true, but it made sense. Francis didn’t want to let you in, didn’t want to talk to you at all, but you made him do so, open himself to you. Thinking he was only a bit shy, you forced him to change and the only thing he wanted was to keep you away from him for your own safety. The whole time you were tempting The Dragon, exposing your neck for him to bite without knowing it. Francis had to fight these temptations all along, to keep The Dragon away from you and keep him satisfied by killing somebody else. Remembering the words Francis said about what The Dragon would do to you caused unstoppable trembling in your whole being and made your cries stronger than they already were. You curled even more, pushing your knees up to your chin to warm up as you threw the blanket away because its scent reminded you of all the good things that turned so bad. You couldn’t make yourself go up to your bedroom as you started to feel sleep embracing your body. Slowly, you drifted off while jerking awake at every small noise you heard. The Dragon bit and devoured you in your dreams.

* * *

You jolted awake with a scream as you felt something tugging onto your tee shirt.

“Are you okay?” after a second you recognised aunt’s worried voice and soon her face as well when your eyes adjusted to the dark. However, you couldn’t response. All the things that happened during the day came back together with sadness stronger than before and you had to do your best to keep yourself from crying right in front of aunt.

“What happened?” she insisted on her question, sounding soft, but you knew that she wouldn’t let you go without an answer.

“Bad dream,” you whispered after you remembered why you actually woke up with a scream. Your answer seemed to be satisfying enough, because aunt suddenly looked more relaxed and calm.

“I’ll – I’ll go to bed,” you muttered incoherently while standing up and fighting a slight dizziness. You left your aunt in the living room, probably wondering what had happened and made your way up to the room, took off your clothes and just in the underwear fell onto the bed and into fitful sleep.

* * *

The several following days were a torture. Fear, unstoppable fear filled your mind and you weren’t able to think properly. The fact that Francis, your Francis you thought you knew so well, was the infamous Red Dragon nested in your heart, burning a great hole in it. You started to jerk at every small noise or sudden movement, felt gazes on your skin even though you were alone, weren’t able to fall asleep and when you finally did, you tossed and often woke up with a soundless scream and wet eyes. Francis could get into your room without great effort, you knew it, he had proved it multiple times before and it always made you uncomfortable, but now you feared that The Dragon could make his way to your room or that he might get too hungry and Francis could not hold him back anymore. That made you seriously consider the idea that you’d call dad. It would be the right thing to do, to tell him the “bad guy” was your neighbour, friend... more than friend. But you couldn’t do it to Francis. It wasn’t him, who killed those people; it was The Dragon he had been carrying on his shoulders all along. Francis was imprisoned. The Dragon had taken him and didn’t want to let go and Francis, the shy, kind Francis you liked, had nowhere to escape. You couldn’t tell anyone. You felt trapped as well. Trapped and horrified.

Eventually, you pushed the fact that Francis was a murderer aside and decided that you would never think of it again. Or him. You did your best to forget everything you had done, but being so close to him, seeing lights from his windows each evening made it harder than you thought and pulling the curtains to block out the light didn’t help much either. Trying to think of something else than Francis and to keep yourself occupied was almost useless and you found yourself turning apathetic, careless and uninterested in what was happening around you. The world had turned gray to you; you could no longer see joy and were unable to find something that could make you happy. With each passing day, the thought of calling dad and asking him whether he could take you away grew stronger and stronger; being so close yet so far away from Francis was torturous and except for his presence there was nothing you thought was a good enough reason to stay with your aunt any longer. Carefully, you approached her one evening, telling her that you’d like to go home and to your surprise, she didn’t try to convince you to stay there and said that she saw you had changed, even asked whether you’d like to talk about it. Quickly enough, you refused her offer, thanked her and rushed to your room to call dad. He however, wasn’t that supportive, but despite having a lot of work and still dealing with the divorce, he promised he’d come for you soon and to lighten up your mood a bit added, that he had found some “sweet-looking” apartment and wanted you to think how you wanted your room to look like. That did help a bit – you occupied yourself with designing your room in your mind, but only for a while, soon you were pulled back into the swirl of restlessness and obtrusive and painful thoughts.

* * *

Rhythmical heavy breathing was echoing in the attic. For many days, Francis Dolarhyde couldn’t calm his mind and the only thing that kept him pacified and eventually tired enough to think of anything at all was his workout. This time, however, not even that seemed to help.

_“What are you doing?”_

Francis jerked at the sudden voice and almost dropped the weights. He decided not to response and continued, pretending that nothing happened.

_“Are you ignoring me, Francis?”_

“Leave,” he finally put the weights down, not able to concentrate any more. His voice was calm, yet it was somehow urgent.

_“Do you miss her?”_ The Dragon growled into Francis’s ear, _“do you miss your little playmate?”_

“S-stop it.” Francis turned swiftly, just to face the window. Out of habit, his eyes fell onto the spot in the dark, where your room was and where he usually found you returning his look, but not now.

_“I should go and see her.”_

“Don’t you-” he turned again, prepared to stop The Dragon, but got hit in the stomach strongly. Francis let out a strangled sigh and fell to his knees. The Dragon hit him again, this time causing him nosebleed. He should have got used to that by now, The Dragon was punishing him far more often than he usually did, demanding attention for the days Francis used to spend only with you. The third hit sent Francis to the ground. He fell down and curled up in attempt to cover his abdomen. The Dragon hit him several more times, each hit made Francis’s eyes water and his throat to let out whimpers of pain.

_“Weak,”_ The Dragon hissed in disgust at the sight beneath him, but stopped at last. Francis kept still for a moment, awaiting more hits, but when they didn’t come, he stood up slowly and started to make his way downstairs, leaving a bloody stain on the carpet, one of his hands holding the railings strongly, the other covering his stomach.

Soon afterwards he came back, a canister of petrol in hands.

_“Do you think you can stop me? No, we are one, remember?”_ The Dragon kept mocking him, scratching his arms in attempt to halt him. With tears in his eyes Francis spilled the petrol over the painting, over the desk, the carpet, the walls...

_“You cannot kill me with fire, Francis!”_ The Dragon roared furiously when Francis returned to the painting once again and emptied the container onto it, the colours of it started to blend together and formed a wet smudge.

“I can try,” Francis responded quietly and lit the match.

* * *

Light and warmth. Small at first, but quickly getting bigger and bigger. The heat was starting to get uncomfortable and even too hot to bear. The light got brighter with each passing second. The chilly night was suddenly filled with too much light that was almost blinding white and stifling hotness. Trees around were casting tall shadows at everything around them and the calmness of the night was interrupted with an abrupt explosion, so big, it resonated in your ears for a long time after that. With the massive blast the fire enlarged rapidly, you had to cover your sleep-puffed eyes with the back of your hand. It was all so sudden you didn’t know how to react. You went to the window, the one you used to watch Francis through, as it was the first thing that came to your mind, almost like an instinct. You felt the heat radiating through the glass and the thick walls and could hardly see anything because of the bright yellow and orange flames climbing up to the night sky.

Francis was in the house. The thought pierced your mind, you were sure of it. You felt your body trembling, your head started to spin violently. Your knees buckled, you tried to grab the windowsill, but your fingers were suddenly too clumsy for that. If it wasn’t for the huge fire of Francis’s house and the deafening sound of sirens of numbers of fire-fighter trucks and police cars rushing down the road, a dull thud of your unconscious body hitting the ground could be heard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The awkward end! Yay! I had to finish it somehow, so please forgive me for this, but I couldn't think of anything better.

Events of the next days were in a big blur. Quickly, too quickly to even recognise what was going on around you, you found yourself standing in the doorway of your aunt’s house and hugging her while your dad was putting the luggage into the car. Unwittingly, you glanced at the place, where not even a day ago a huge mansion-like house with so many rooms you couldn’t count and secrets only you and Francis shared was standing and making pleasant shadow in the afternoon. Now, you saw only a big black area with ashy beams and what was left of the walls and the chimney. Even the apple trees around were looking miserable, their usual greenness had turned into an ugly shade of brown. A wave of unspeakable desperation rushed into you, making your eyes burn with unshed tears. You inhaled shakily in attempt to stop crying and looked elsewhere. Your eyes met with your aunt’s and you saw tears as well. She wiped them with the back of her hand swiftly, gave you a small smile and waved goodbye as you sat into the car. You forced yourself to wave back, but refused to look back anymore. Couldn’t. You tried to deny that anything happened at all, but the pain from what happened was too raw and strong to fight. You curled on the passenger seat and let the tears fall down quietly, not caring that dad was right next to you. He didn’t try to approach you and you were thankful for that, but put his hand onto your shoulder and caressed you softly instead.

Slowly, you pushed the thoughts of Francis away completely, pretending that nothing happened. It was hard and the effort cost you a lot of power, but after a couple of weeks you pushed him out of your head and heart almost completely. It left you sore and there was a big wound inside you that could not be healed by anything but Francis’s touch, but you learned to live that way. Having a new home with dad made things at least a bit easier. You were living in a new town and finding your way around kept you occupied most of the time. You were outside a lot, wondering through the streets and discovering interesting cafés and shops. The anonymity of a big town you lived in was, in your opinion, great, no one was staring at you while crossing the road; nobody cared about what you were doing or was curious and nosy. That was good. You didn’t have to have long debates with anybody as there was none to have them with, you hardly knew anyone except a few shop assistants, you didn’t even have a neighbour. The owner of the apartment house was a nice lady in her mid seventies, always with a kind smile and a word or two about the weather, but you thought she saw your lack of interest in talking, so she kept that to minimum. You started your life again, this time however, it was a bit gloomy and silent, but you got used to it.

* * *

“I’ve got big news, honey,” dad smiled brightly while walking up the stairs with you behind his back.

“Good or bad?” you peeked from over the two grocery bags you were holding.

“Don’t know, it depends on you,” he gave you a brief look, mischievous twinkles in his eyes.

“So what is it then?” you always hated that look, it reminded you of all those pranks you were often victim of, but forced yourself not to think of it now.

“We have a new neighbour,” dad responded happily. You, however, had to force a smile as you were not as fond of this news as your father clearly was, “I have already met him yesterday, seems like a good guy. Not really talkative and a bit intimidating, but once you get to know him... interesting fellow.”

“Alright then,” you didn’t know how to react to that, but the new neighbour might not be such a threat if he was really not as talkative as dad said. Quietly, you proceeded up to the apartment and while waiting for dad to fish for the keys in his pocket, you wondered what this new neighbour might be like.

“Speaking of the devil...” dad grinned widely as he saw a muscular figure walking up the stairs just like you two did a moment ago. You looked that way and when the man approached his own apartment and put down the bags he was holding to unlock the door, you froze.

“Y/N, this is Mr. Armitage,” dad pointed towards you and you did your best to act normally.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Y/N,” Mr. Armitage stretched his arm towards you for a handshake.

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Armitage,” you accepted his hand and chills of pleasure waved over your body as you felt his touch again. It wasn’t Mr. Armitage. It was Francis. He didn’t have that neat army cut anymore, but longer and stylish, the stubble you saw him last time with has turned into a nice beard and his scar was hardly visible. It was a completely different man on the outside, but it was still your Francis. And he knew you knew it. He pulled away sooner than the handshake could turn awkward and exchanged a few polite phrases with your dad.

“See? Not that scary, right?” dad nudged to your shoulder when you finally went inside and you did your best not to freak out totally. He was dead. He was dead and now he was here. You didn’t understand.

* * *

After dad went to work and you were left alone you flounced to the kitchen and didn’t leave it until a sweet smell could be felt in the whole apartment.

Your hands were shaking a bit when you placed a plate of cookies onto the mat in front of Mr. Armitage’s front door. After you checked that everything was looking absolutely perfect, you rang the doorbell and rushed to your own apartment. Through the peephole you watched Mr. Armitage opened the door slowly and noticed the cookies after he checked that no one was on the hall. His eyes fell onto the door you were hiding behind and even though he couldn’t see you, you knew he knew you were watching. With a small smile he returned back home, only to come out after several minutes, the empty plate in hand, and heading towards you. He didn’t even bother with ringing, just knocked quietly. You opened the door too quickly, without caring that Mr. Armitage knew you were ready to do so.

“Hello,” you smiled politely, pretending that everything was normal; even though you were afraid your heart would make its way out of your chest as it was beating so fast.

“Hi,” Mr. Armitage responded while clutching the plate in both hands strongly, “thank you for the cookies, they were really good... kind of familiar.”

Nor you and neither Francis could hold it any longer. The last thing you heard was a crushing sound of the plate falling down when Francis’s arms embraced your body strongly, his mouth sealing yours in a kiss full of passion, love and a sweet aftertaste of one of your cookies. Your hand made its way up to his hair, pulling gently and enjoying the new sensation of the length. Francis’s beard was a bit prickly and tingly, but you didn’t care. You pulled him inside by his shoulders and closed the door behind you two.

“Missed you so much,” Francis mumbled against your neck while peppering kisses and inhaling your fragrance.

“Francis,” you pulled him away to look him in the eyes, your voice starting to get shaky and eyes watering again, “do you have any idea what-”

“I’m sorry, I really am” Francis said seriously and cupped your face, “but please, promise me one thing.”

You could promise him anything he’d ask for now without caring what it’d be. You kept quiet, so he continued, wiping the tears that fell to your cheeks, “it’s Richard Armitage now, not Francis Dolarhyde. And The Dragon is gone, everything is new now... Please remember it.”

“I will,” you chuckled slightly and hugged him once more.

“But you owe me an explanation,” you muttered to his chest and felt a rumbling chuckle you missed so much escaping his throat.

“It can wait, we have plenty of time,” Richard wrapped his arms around you and pulled you closer to his body. He was right, it could wait. Anything could wait. Now you had all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, I tried :D

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this at least a bit, if yes, don't forget to leave a kudo and a comment. :)


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